


Sunsets Over the Trinity

by laZardo, Silvis



Series: RMWT: Air, Land & Seadweller [2]
Category: Homestuck, Max Payne - All Media Types, Tropa de Elite 2 | Elite Squad: The Enemy Within (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Earth, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Gen, Minor Character Death, Original Character Death(s), Real Men Wear Tights
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-01-20 23:47:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 35,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1530221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laZardo/pseuds/laZardo, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvis/pseuds/Silvis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures." - Troll Flava Flav</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Some Kind of Alternate Universe, If You Will

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SergeantMeow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SergeantMeow/gifts), [Bananaramses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bananaramses/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Real Men Wear Tights](https://archiveofourown.org/works/469179) by [Bananaramses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bananaramses/pseuds/Bananaramses), [SergeantMeow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SergeantMeow/pseuds/SergeantMeow). 
  * Inspired by [Like One Sundered Star](https://archiveofourown.org/works/869819) by [oriflamme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oriflamme/pseuds/oriflamme). 



**== > Be Kaviro Morrah.**

**Somewhere in Rio de Janeiro**  
**Present Day  
11:12pm**

 

You cannot be Captain Kaviro Morrah because he is quite literally at a dead end.

More specifically, he was heading home in a compact car that just took a direct hit from a grenade launcher.

You probably won't be doing anything as him for a while.

 

**== > Okay, be Meenah Peixes instead.**

**Favela Dersão**  
**30 seconds earlier**

_"Meenah? M--E--ENAH! Gog no!"_

_"Shut the fuck up, you fucking wader!"_

You are Meenah Peixes and you didn't want it to end this way.

You, a full-tyrian-blooded member of the once-dominant House of Peixes. An empress-to-be and a "pretender" only because that's the term those landdwellers and humans came up with because your former empire no longer exists on official maps. A royal among royals. Bred to be the best that your species could ever hope to produce, to lord it over all. Wielder of might that made your own damn right.

And now you're _**D-----EAD**_ of a pitiful .45 caliber wound right through the gills, your corpse hemorrhaging your now-formerly-imperial-to-be tyrian blood out all over the gravel deep in the heart of some lowly slum far from where anybody is likely to find your body.

The direct cause of your death is currently also sprawled across the gravel next to you along with a couple of his henchmen. But the primary cause of all your deaths is an impersonator that is doused in gasoline and struggling to get out of the steel-belted truck tires that got wrenched around her.

The insult upon injury is that she's supposed to be impersonating  _you._ Well, you when you're not in civilian clothes whose only purpose now is soaking up some of your blood that the ground won't claim.

"Gecko? Water you doing!?" She's strong enough that she could probably rip through the tires binding her given enough time, but not nearly enough time to escape the one person that you hoped to take with you.

_"Finishing the job."_

Maybe it's some kind of hollow solace that said impersonator is about to get turned into fake fried fishy by your lime-blooded arch-nemesis, who has finally snapped after pursuing the two of you for so long. If only you were alive to see how he's finally succumbed to the pressure of being some kind of idealistic hero like the typical landdwelling (and especially _lime_ -blooded) scum he is.

"I can explain, Gecko! Please, put that lighter down!" she screams, but you can't hear.

"I said shut up, puta! You and your fucking wader corporation and those fucking skulls and the _milicia_ have done nothing but to set my city on fire!" he screams, hysterical and threatening. "You don't give a shit about who's in your way as long as the streets run rainbow with our blood!"

"Please, Gecko...I̧͚͙̙͈'̱̟͈͎m̸̬̤̲ ̖̲n͓o̴̞̠t͔̹̬̘̭͍͍.̰̞͚̣̝͇̥.̛̗̫̼̜̦̙͔ **.̣͚w̜̩͎̜͢h̕o̝̹ ̳̳̠̯͕̳ỵ̥o̥̱̦̠̼u̷̫͖̯̗̭͈̲ ̻͎̬̦͖͔t̝͕̻̘͚̠ͅh̗̮̮̯i̳̠͟n͚̠͎̦̣̱k̙.̹̻͖͖͎͖.͖͠.̣̜̪** "

You don't see your doppelganger's eyes roll up into her skull, her hair turning white and the shadowy aura that causes Gecko to stop in his tracks and recoil in fear.

You don't see the glowing white tendrils emerging from the sewers and the ditches and the loadgaper-infested waterways. You don't see them infesting the unconscious bodies around you, before making their way toward Gecko. You can only wish you could see them latching onto his legs and crawling into his clothing, seeing him start to drip and retch tar and tendrils out of his mouth, choking and trying to apologize...before the tentacles slither over to claim you.

It wasn't supposed to end this way. All you wanted was to have a fun night out with your so-called "fishter." Instead it ended here with you bleeding out from a gruesome gunshot wound to the gills deep in some slum where the horrorterrors will assimilate your body and what remains of its consciousness into the eternally melting abyss of unfathomable agony.

Ironic how they call it purification. You and all these warm torsos are the edible taint upon their world and now they are about to sweep the platter clean.

Maybe in between the spasms of incomprehensible anguish that you call an afterlife you can ruminate on how things could have turned out before your soul is eventually consumed into the hive mind symphony of the damned. Like it happened in some kind of alternate universe, if you will. And you could take some solace in the fact that he and probably the entire favela will join you in the eternal embrace of the Furthest Ring

You could call them dream-bubbles or something, however tiny they will be spewed from your mouth in its final sentient gasps.

**== > Ruminate on how you got here.**

**== > FILE ACCESSED**

**== > TO BE CONTINUED**


	2. These Unfortunate Series of Events

**== > FILE OPEN**

**== > Meenah: Ruminate on how it got this way.**

**Favela Dersão  
11:11pm**

You cannot ruminate because you are not Meenah, you are the sniper.

You failed your mission. Elsewhere, the favela continues to burn. But you have to take the shot.

You can feel yourself sweating through your armor and into the dirtied, mold-stained concrete underneath, and it's hideously reassuring knowing that your perspiration reminds you that you're still human - for now.

You came to eliminate the person responsible for the death of your best friend as well as one of the city's up-and-coming businesswomen. That person left a few seconds before you got here, but his top henchman and some extra goons are lying around.

But the hard part about making this shot is willing yourself to do this despite what appears to be nothing less than grimdark witchery happening where there should be a gangland necklacing.

Sure, you have plenty of ammo to tick two of the city's most infamous troublemakers off the most wanted list. But in the state they're in, they're going to come back from an otherwise fatal wound unless you hit them in some sacred spot.

You zoom in on the ghast that used to be Gecko, who has just finished retching out his sentience and is now shambling mindlessly toward his new grimdark overlord. You figured it would take some kind of mind control for him to kneel for La Bicuda, who is clearly willing her new slave against what remains of his sentient will to free her from those tires. You never figured the Empress of the Favela for a Grimdark Queen, but then again you never figured things would end up this way a week ago.

He claws and twists at those tires, having lost the mental faculties required to free someone from a necklacing. It looks like a pitiful effort if you don't consider the fact that she's also reanimated the militia henchmen to help him out - and who knows who else she's going to recruit if those tendrils keep spreading.

You figure you can wait just a moment before he stands in front of her, giving you only a moment to take the twofer and run before you become her next recruit. And judging by the tingling sensations you feel beneath your body, it's not going to be a very long moment.

At the worst, you only have a split second to take the shot and hope they join you and your friend with the horrorterrors of the Furthest Ring.

You've lost your moirail and Meenah Peixes. What else do you have to lose?

You hold your breath and pray the bullet does what it's supposed to before you pull the trigger.

If it's going to be your last, you won't be the only one going out with a bang.

* * *

**== > Meenah: Can you ruminate now?**

Actually, although you are now Meenah, you cannot ruminate because you are D--EAD. Come on, that was fairly obvious. However for the sake of informing the reader, we have decided to flashback to the beginning of these unfortunate series of events.

**Days earlier, but not many...**

**Galeão International Airport**  
**Rio de Janeiro, Brazil  
8:22am**

The sun's only starting to rise but even though you're in your favorite crop-top and booty shorts it's fucking warm enough out here that even any skin contact with the pavement will instantly turn you into fried fishy. Fortunately for you, the air-conditioning from within the terminal bathes you as you stand by your tyrian-and-gold limo holding a sign that says "Peixes" in matching gold and tyrian-purple lettering." You still have to deal with the stench of the fucking landdwellers stepping off of their overnight flights though.

"Feferi, bayby! Over here!" you call out as you recognize those bright pink goggles over the school of tourists, businessmen and other assorted nobodies swarming out of the terminal's arrival section.

"M---E---ENAH!" She raises her free arm to wave back at you, jumping up and down with that ever-so-bubbly smile on her freckled face.

You still don't understand why your so-called fishter still chooses to fly _commercial_. More specifically, she caught business class on TAM out of JFK like some kind of _upper-caste landdweller_ instead of the Empress of the North that she's supposed to be. Which means you get dragged out all the way here through rush hour as usual instead of descending with a capital [S] down to Marinho like you do in your obnoxiously bright red private cruiser whenever you have to travel.

That doesn't stop you from almost leaping into the SISHUG you give her.

Normally you'd be gagging while your face is on her shoulder. Once upon a long time ago, two tyrians meeting would be heralded with much fanfare and a royal function with throngs of landdwellers on either end. Or a battle to the death. Meeting like this, like two ordinary landdwellers or humans with maybe a lone paparazzo thinking you two are endangered species is just too ordinary for your taste.

But at least this time it will finally give you an excuse to try the scenic route your limo was recently equipped for. You can't even call yourself a seadweller without having some way of flaunting your wealth and influence, even to others in your caste.

"Guuuuuuuuuurl, it's been a whale!" you shout as the two of you embrace by the exit.

"LIK---EWIS---E!" her voice is equally bubbly and she blushes as you hug her.

"What the fugu took you so long though? How many' those _terra secas_  you had to bribe?" you ask as the two of you begin walking toward the limo. With a snap of your fingers your human chauffeur takes Fef's luggage and carefully loads it into the trunk.

She gives a humored huff, having to deal with your hemoist sense humor since your common lusus introduced you to each other. "Just had to clear my 2x3dent through customs is all."

"So quite a few then, huh," you conclude, before she gives you a friendly jab on the shoulder.

"Meenah!" she suddenly chirps, "You know money isn't the solution for everything."

"It kelps, that's for sure," you smirk back as your chauffeur opens the doors for the two of you to step in.

The two of you get in and let out simultaneous, matching sighs as you sink into the plush, dyed ex-lusus leather that lines the seats. It takes your mind off having to tell her exactly how you acquired it because even someone at your level of influence no longer has access to fully-legitimate channels. She also rolls down the window because the air conditioning inside does make it a bit stuffy.

"So....how's the Big Apple been?" you ask as the limo glides away from the terminals, eager to hear if she finally managed to plant the Imperial Standard on the ruins of the old society.

"I'll tell you later," she explains to your mild disappointment, "I could use a nap now." But oh no, you're not letting her doze off on an opportunity to impress her.

"Hang on, I wanna show you somefin!" you boast, before knocking on the blacked-out privacy window behind you. "Driver, take the seanic route!" All of a sudden what feels like machinery mounted under the periphery of the limo whirs to life as he drives down a service road that runs alongside the water.

Once he spots a gap in the guide rail, the driver pauses and eases the limo off the embankment and onto the crisp blue waters of Guanabara Bay.

Thanks to a little bit of techie wizardry from your R&D peons, your limo now has jet-powered amphibious capabilities, and is now hovering over the crystal blue.

She looks outside with a soft smile as the limo-turned-boat darts around the iconic Sugarloaf Mountain and out of the bay into the Atlantic before looping back toward Rio's South Zone, while you retrieve some bubbly from the minibar that lines the side of the limo opposite where you got in.

As you take a sip, your glance darts between the ocean and all those landdwelling tourists in the distance like crawlbeasts squirming around in the endless turquoise, and her. You suspect she's slightly worried about her - and your - lusus, but then again anybody who had to deal with the Peixes Family Lusus would be worried to a nervous breakdown at the very least.

It's why you don't mind the fact that she's always looked a little thick around the edges. She's been tending to 'Glubby' more often than you, and the typically-tyrian strength and bio-layering required to survive those cold, crushing depths is why you're also not surprised she never wavers when you leap into a sis-hug.

Maybe after you conquer the world, you'll dynamite _O Cristo Redentor_ into something more of her image.

But first there's the even more monumental task of bringing her around to your side. At least now she's awake if not impressed by your detour.

"So, water we gonna be doing whale we're together?" she begins, turning to face you mid-sip. "Which sopping trawl are we going to hit up first?"

"Actually, now'd you mention it," you sigh as you put the champagne glass down on the table, your fangy smile wiped off your face as you suddenly remember what you're doing in the more immediate future. "We gotta take part in this bullfish black tie function this evening."

"Oh!" she gives a mischievous grin. "No rooftop parties or sopping sprees tonight?"

"Shut the fuck up, okay?" you snap back, crossing your arms and looking away, "Somefin' I gotta do to build up my connections, ya feel me? They're moray your craw-d though."

She is clearly intrigued, clasping her hands and leaning forward. "And  _who,_ cray tell, would be my crawd?"

"Polifishians, businessmen, ya know," you wave dismissively. "Whole schools'a suited sharkbags. Only reason I'm goin' is 'cause they're more like the whales in the big money ocean."

She breaks into a bubbly laugh. "Meenah, you know I came down here to  _escape_ those bottomfeeders, not to drink with them."

You reach forward and put a reassuring hand by her knee. "Trust me, baybe, it's only one night. We get this shit over with, and T)(----EN we party!" you raise your hands as far as the ceiling will allow, screaming those last words.

"Looks like reef got a plan then," Feferi giggles before leaning back and letting the incoming ocean mist sprinkle against her face, "I guess for now I'll get my beauty sleep, okay?"

"More bubbly for me then," you shrug, before taking a good chug of the stuff.

* * *

**Penthouse, Torre Tubarão  
9:15 am**

**== > Be Feferi Peixes**

When you wake up a few minutes later it's because the limo is switching back to land-crawler mode as it lands on Copacabana Beach, parting the waves of tourists as the driver navigates the sand. Your first instinct is to duck and roll up the window before they mistake you for your "sister" and start snapping pics for the gossip magazines.

The transition from air-conditioning to heat to air-conditioning lasts only the few seconds it takes for you and Meenah to get out of your car, through the lobby of one of her many high-rise residential properties in Rio de Janeiro alone with the bellhop carrying your luggage in tow and into the glass-bubble elevator facing outward to the Copacabana. She walks with a bit of a swagger, as seadwellers tend to have a bit of an extra sensitivity to alcohol than those trolls without fins.

"Whelp, here we are, foam sweet foam!" she almost sings as the elevator door opens to the entrance hall of the tower's extravagant penthouse. "Oh bayby, I just can't ever get sick of the interior design up in the heezy!"

You're familiar with the gratuitously gold-and-tyrian trimmed trappings that is typical of any living space owned by Meenah Peixes, which makes it easy to keep yourself from pulling a gagging face every time she isn't looking.

You politely take your luggage from the bellhop. "I can sea you added a few extra touches to the place," you reply, looking around like you were at least trying to find something different underneath the glitz and glitter.

"Shell yeah you just can't stuff enough bling into the furniture these days," she says, waving a hand in that usual hollowly casual act about how it's all just expected of her. "Hard enuff gettin' em when they run out so quick, know what I'm sayin'?"

"Whale, I suppose I should change out of these," you then reply, looking around for something to crash in under the sun reflecting obnoxiously off the bling. "Mind if I scuttle down before we-"

You can't finish the sentence because it suddenly got "banging up in the heezy" from a beat Meenah instantly recognizes as the ringtone for her bright pink shellphone. It irks you that it seems to echo across a living room that's only been dusted off from weeks of disuse.

"Actually, somefin' just came up that I gotta put down," she mutters after a brief conversation, heading to the door with the bellhop right behind her. "I'll B-B-L 'bout six to pick yall up, 'kay?"

"Shore thing!" you chime back with a wave. Once she's out the door, you make your way across the generously-spaced living room.

You are Feferi Peixes and you proceed to flop down on the couch like a fish out of water and stretch your legs, staring up at the ceiling and the wavy reflections created by the gold trim on pretty much every piece of furniture.

Business class these days might have the same legroom as first, but that's still 10+ hours of sitting down. Your legs were always a little restless, more so now than before, but at least it hasn't been quite your fault.

Every now and then you'd like to treat yourself to a vacation outside of the hustle and bustle of New York City and the empty longings of your once-would-be moirail across the country. And no, Sweet Seven Sweep parties in the Hamptons could never quite cut it.

You would have scheduled it earlier, but apparently the Big Apple got wormed straight through with the grimdark while you were off in the Atlantic taking care of your lusus. Although Gl'bolyb protected you from becoming corrupted yourself, you felt compelled to continue your work in _both_ your guises until the city was reasonably cleaned up, because you just have to cull people whose lives were ruined by the Dark Star.

By cull of course you mean "caring for the unfit and infirm." It's some kind of personal redefinition that you feel you would be better equipped to explain in another universe. But you definitely don't mean culling as defined by the Californian special police units that infested New York like sharks feeding off a school of wounded dolphins. You spent quite some time pleading with your friends in City Hall not to give in to that _cray_ -zy Governor and his Super"Crime" unit.

You also suspect that Eridan might have pleaded with  _his_  corporate connections in City Hall, sending the SCU over with Atlantis Industries weapons to show just how "awwesome" he is with his love for military force. He's just the type to double down on his public and semi-public displays of wealth and influence after what happened to him when he tried to get into the supervillain gig, which you _also_ suspect was his latest attempt of many at trying to get into _some_ kind of quadrant with you.

Eventually, the Mayor relented to you by kicking the proverbial can of Tab down the paper trail and restricting their roles because it's bad enough that the NYPD tends to be lukewarm about your escapades, the last thing you need is Californian militiamen wanting you(r superhero persona) roasted on a spit. So that means you finally get at least a week or two of relative relaxation, knowing how long things can take to go through one of America's oldest political canneries.

And of course, Meenah has to spice it up by introducing you to their Brazilian counterparts almost as soon as you get down here. You let her know that New York to get _away_ from the bureaucratic game of thrones, but at least that won't take away from enjoying some quality time with her after the party tonight.

You bring your luggage up a fashionable flight of stairs to your room, stretch your arms and open the room's curtains to let some light in.

This isn't the first time you've been treated to the view outside. _Treated,_ of course, being used sarcastically.

Although your room is only slightly less extravagant than Meenah's, she likes to let you stay in the room that's facing _away_ from the Copacabana, toward the big, sprawling reason why the Brazilian megacities are the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere.

Much of the urban development to the north of the tower consists of _favelas_ , mostly-impromptu slums that have slowly encroached away from the city since the bad old days when caste-slavery was still _de jure_  legal. And while some have gotten onto their own two feet, many others are still buzzing hives of poverty and crime. Of every troll and human for themselves, a classic display of survival of the fittest that is just begging for an empire to conquer its divided populace.

An empire obviously ruled by the two of you unless she somehow has a fantasy of turning against you in the final confrontation to determine the One True Empress, as was decided in the days of the _old_  Empire.

You know she puts you in this room because she wants you to get a good view of that empire and all the serfs not fit to take a loadgaper in the water you swim in. That there are plenty of people who deserve to face justice for the metaphorical and literal loadgapers they take in you water is beside the point because in a twisted way, that's the empire you have right now. And that's why you brought a different set of luggage than last time. One that you are fully equipped to explain in this universe, but won't.

What you could explain, if you wanted to, is how you're going to bring a more benevolent, much more metaphorical rule over the favela.

You get up and take your suitcase to your sleeping quarters, unloading its contents on top of the recuperacoon cover.

First off is the special 2x3dent contained in its own storage within the suitcase. The components are made of defense-grade material, but click together effortlessly. You perform a few practice swings and jabs, deftly avoiding the nearby furniture.

And those aren't the only special items you've checked in from JFK. You've also brought the rest of your outfit with you. The ornate but resilient get-up of your other job, from the special info-goggles to the dress. It takes up the majority of your suitcase because you're pretty glubbing sure that Meenah is going to take you out on a shopping spree for a new wardrobe of civvies sometime in the next couple of days.

You carefully unfold the contents and arrange them on the 'cupe cover before sliding them onto individual hangers you brought to hang them on. They might be built to withstand all kinds of abuse, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't get some tender loving culling from you every now and then as well.

Once they're all set up, you withdraw most of your normal clothing and make your way to the closet to hang up most of them. Or specifically, your closet. Every bedroom in this place has its own walk-in closet, full of top-brand outfits your "sister" has only worn once at most because fashion seasons don't even last the season they're assigned to.

Something catches your eye almost immediately before you get to the entrance though. Like there's some kind of writing(?) glowing faintly inside. Your fins flutter upward into an alert state as you slink toward the light switch.

The light turns your alert state into stupefaction.

Speaking of new additions, there's actually one at the far end of the walk-in closet that _isn't_ clothing: a giant autographed poster of Her Imperious Condescension from the new Ancestors movie. Meenah clearly either went straight to Hollywood in her cruiser to get it or paid someone handsomely to go in her place autographed "Dear Meenah, you RUL-----E!" by the actress that played her in the film.

_In glow-in-the-dark bright pink glitter-pen._

And then encased in what is likely an actual gold-plated frame.

You haven't yet seen the movie yourself. But you can assume that the new shape of the Condesce's horns was clearly the result of Meenah paying someone in the production company who finally relented after refusing all her offers and assorted threats for changing the empress' name from Kalatt Vissen IX to something more to her liking.

You pull out your shellphone and bring up the mapping apps for the nearby neighborhoods. The last few times you've been down here, you've used the app to look for NGOs working in the favela that need volunteers. Their headquarters down there are now bookmarks and checkpoints for you to undergo your little transformation. You tap at several of these bookmarks excitedly, because you really got enough sleep on the flight and you're ready to spend an afternoon doing a little superhero work.

You slip into some casuals, pack up your gear in one of Meenah's spare backpacks and stroll briskly toward the exit.

There's a bubbly smile plastered all over your face as the bubble-like elevator lowers you down to earth, as you imagine what would happen if you ran into either of the favela's local legends: that scalebeast-themed superhero or his tyrian-wannabe archnemesis that clearly does not resemble your sister in any way.

Next stop, Favela Nova Prospite.

It's time for the Nymph to perform some reconnaissance.

* * *

**== > Try to be Kaviro Morrah, again.**

**Apartment 1212**  
**Flamengo District, Rio de Janeiro**  
  
**5:29 pm**

You are Deputy Secretary Kaviro Morrah and you do not like to party. However that fails to explain why you are getting ready for one.

You've just stepped out of the ablution trap and you're going to spend the next ten minutes or so drying off and performing your final "grooming procedures" before taking care of whatever else you need to do before leaving. The smell of your laundry hamper fights its way into your nostrils past the smell of the body wash, but it doesn't faze you as you reflect your glance in the mirror toward the source.

Your Taurus PT92 is in its trusty holster hanging by the doorknob just in case, but that's beside the point.

Sweat has soaked straight through your dress shirt and dark gray slacks and you make a mental note to do the laundry when you get back. You've smelled worse things in the favela and saw their source to match. Opposite of the hamper, hanging just above the gun, is a bright pink dry cleaning bag containing precisely one (1) tuxedo.

To be completely honest, you wish you had some combat fatigues just so you didn't forget how they felt after another day's worth of air-conditioned bureaucracy.

But you're not really leading BOPE into battle anymore. Now you're one of the suits in charge of the Department of Public Security and as a welcoming gift the people upstairs gave you a tux that can withstand your natural blueblood strength, which is both a blessing because it means you don't have to worry about humiliating yourself and a curse because you'd rather be in the aforementioned fatigues sticking it to those gogdamned cartels.

_"...Governor Vhaske continues to trail challenger, legislator Maria Paz Vieira by 5 points in the latest polls..."_

You almost nick yourself with the razor you're using to trim your five o'clock shadow. Your monitoring rounds today concluded so early due to the function that you actually arrived back at your hive in time for the afternoon news playing on the cheap radio you keep in your bathroom. You'd gotten so used to the music as the white noise in the shower that you've practically forgotten about the broadcast spoken word.

You'd normally ignore the once-petty conflicts of the suited scumbags that gave you your job, but you would rather hope that Ms. Vieira for all her good intentions does not replace the suited scumbag that gave you the power to grow your special tactical unit into a real fighting force.

_"...citing repeated concerns about disappearances..."_

As much as you hate those suited scumbags fighting in their houses of power and the local media preaching to their choir of activists (not that you haven't heard your side of the aisle do the same,) at least they give you headway to do what's right by the decent people of this city, rich and poor. If Ms. Vieira gets into power though, _that_ might be something harder to fight than the cartels or the militias.

And that's mainly why they let you off early. The Governor is rallying all his bases of power and they'll want to know where you'll stand. Standing near him will ensure that people that respect law and order will stand with him by your proxy.

Once you're done with your photos you'll probably spend the rest of the function standing by the railing of the rooftop with a glass of ginger ale, looking out at all the crime you could be stopping right now. Or you'll be hunched over in the bathroom vomiting out your disgust over having to share the rooftop with top police brass that may allegedly be sponsoring those militias that you can't get approval to touch.

_"And now for celebrity news..."_

You continue to shave with one hand and reach for the radio switch with the other. You still normally ignore the petty conflicts of celebrities and football stars, and you intend to keep it that way.

What you hear next causes you to nick your chin with the razor.

_"A new look for the queen of crime, and a new lease on life? Or a pretender to the throne? Unverified photos from Nova Prospite show what appear to be an extravagantly-dressed La Bicuda thwarting a minibus holdup..."_

Small droplets of blue blood stain the white porcelain sink and you immediately proceed to rinse off and find a towel and some ointment.

Maybe it's just another rumor, you deduce. Maybe it's just some imitator trying to capitalize on her reputation. Wouldn't be the first.

_"You can find all the photos up on our website at-"_

You switch off the radio and decide to look into it tomorrow morning as you prepare to put on the tuxedo.

You only have the smallest inkling that it will be the most... _interesting_ week of your life.

**== > TO BE CONTINUED**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still not quite good with fish puns. @_@ I tried to follow a version of Feferi as still being somewhat uppity and elitist given her behavior in primary SGRUB canon, like she wants to follow her version of what it means to do good despite what others think especially in a world not ruled by the Condesce.


	3. From Cosplayers to Straight-Up Imitators

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nymph character concept by bananaramses. Reference to the Dark Star incident is a shoutout to "Like One Sundered Star" and its amazing author oriflamme.

**== > FILE OPEN**

**Favela Cerebro Fogo**  
**12:30pm**

You are Feferi Peixes and it feels good to be home. Ish. Fish. Home-fish.

You've called a lot of places your "home." Most of the time it's either New York City (specifically, New York Bay) or somewhere in the EC or wherever the family has an estate. Or the ocean in general. Anywhere where you feel you can do the most good is really the strongest candidate to be called "home."

The cab drops you off just within the favela's formally-defined boundaries, on one of the few two-lane roads that pass through on their way back to the main thoroughfares. You pay the driver - with a generous tip, you might add - and sling your traveler's backpack around you as you step out into the summer heat and the clear blue sky, your hair tied into a long tail. All the different scents of the favela seem to smoothly waft into your gills as you begin your trek up to the outreach center you marked on your GPS. Some of the odors are foodie, others a bit more funky, but all familiar. Almost like taking a dip in a stew, although you'd N---EV---ER endorse cannibalism under any circumstance.

The moment you make your way up the first one-lane street you're already in the thick of the buildings though - something immediately seems off.

Named after a curious insect whose bite led to incredible head fevers among the earlier settlers of this former forest, Cerebro Fogo is now one of the more organized favelas in the city, as it were. The buildings and alleyways aren't as twisty, sanitation is at least noticably more developed than the worst-off areas of the town. But as long as there are people, there will always be people needing help, and that's where people like you come in. You and the good folks who are able to step off the ivory tower of privilege that so many citizens of Rio reside in to come down and do a little culling. Culling, of course, not as defined by almost everyone else.

Only that's not what makes it seem so off. Sure, you believe that when citizens of all classes work together, even the most "untamed" favela can get on its feet.

But even though it hasn't been quite six months since the last time you visited, you can't quite remember even Cerebro Fogo being patrolled like a military occupation zone.

There are armed men patrolling the streets, but not of the gangland variety. And by gangland, you mean the ones in blue as much as the ones in other gang colors. Unless by "blue" you mean the mid-to-upper-blooded trolls among the surly humans performing their patrols.

For one, the gangs of this particular favela can be found a little deeper in, and not usually out in broad daylight. When those glorified rent-a-thugs from BOPE drop in, they usually only linger in the "hot zones" and the key routes out before driving off with their haul of prisoners and corpses in the same day.

But these men look more like private security contractors, and they seem to be almost everywhere, with body armor, combat boots, and modern assault rifles and submachine guns carried out in the open. And not just plain surplus, these guys look like they've bought them off the same assembly lines as the Brazilian Army. It could explain why the neighborhood is a little...quieter than normal.

Come to think about it, the warzone comparison fits. The local citizenry walking around these new gunmen appear to be moving about their daily lives much quicker than they normally would.

You decide to pick up the pace. Walking just fast enough to keep in pace with the other civilians, hands on your backpack straps just in case-

"Hey, are you lost?" you hear one of them call.

Right. You're technically a tourist. And a seadweller. You hope they're at least trying to act friendly toward you.

"Oh!" You turn around and try to put on a clueless facade as you face a pair of these gunmen, both human and both built to mangle someone. The sudden tension you're getting adds to the authenticity. "Oh no. I know where I'm going, thanks!"

The gunman nods. "All right then, babe. You stay safe. You need an escort?"

"It's fin'. Thank you!" you reply as you start moving on.

"Well if you need anything, just holler, okay?"

"I brill, thanks." As much as you suspect they mean well, it's hard for you to want to keep this conversation going on.

You try not to look back as you straddle the fine line between fast walking and straight up absconding.

* * *

Five winding blocks up the hill and a flight of narrow stairs up when you're sure you've left that patrol behind, you reach the squat sky-blue brick building that forms the outreach center.

This particular outreach center helps provide after-school tutoring for human kids and the recently-pupated. There's also a small lot that's just large enough for the kids to enjoy a little football friendly as well. The staff here are your classmates from when you took a summer class at the university a couple years ago, and you've made it a point to always stop here when you do your volunteer work.

In fact, they know you well enough here that they're the first ones to greet you.

"Feferi! Oh my god, we heard about what happened in New York, I'm so glad you're safe!" Joao's been going to college as a medical student and hopes to become a doctor. It explains why he's greeted you like a patient finally recovered from intensive care, hugging you almost tearfully

"Thank you! I'm sorry I wasn't here earlier but I had PL---ENTY of fins to fix up in the Big Apple."

"I know, I heard! I'm happy you made it out alive!" Elizabeta adds as she approaches from the reception desk to join in.. She's slightly taller than you, and she's been here longer. When she started out here she was more focused on racking up hours for the graduation requirements, but now she seems to genuinely love her work.

"Oh my glub Y---ES! And I sea we have a new fish in the pond!"

There's a green-blood troll working on arranging recently-made pieces on a display board. You could hazard he's some shade of green just from the fact that he appears to be wearing the violently neon-green jersey of the Seattle Sounders football club along with the matching tips on his bundled dreads.

Or it's just his double roundabout reacharound way of expressing the football equivalent of hemonymity.

Like most everywhere in the world with more than one club sharing the same city, Rio's favelas can be divided along the same lines as - and with - gangs. Down here, Alternão's blue and black clashes with Beforra 06 and their red and gold in more than just their color schemes.

"Oh yeah! That's Ptycho Kateus, he started here a couple weeks ago," Joao explains. "He's a bit of an oddball but he doesn't bite-"

He hasn't finished introducing you when you've gone up to him and introduced yourself with a big, squealy hug.

"Eh heh, ssshe's a fffriendly one." he laughs, with an almost reptilian pronounciations of his S's.

"Feferi comes down here often to help out," Joao explains. "She's really good people."

"Fffor a wader, yeah-"

"Hey, watch your tone," Joao rebukes.

"No, it's fine." You reply, shrugging it off as you let him go. You've been called the w-word by a lot of people, particularly down here where people aren't exactly afraid to speak their minds. "Nice to meet you...Ptycho!"

Your hesistation was due to the fact that there appear to be some kind of old burn scars on his neck, creeping out from under his jersey.

"Sssame," he chuckles as he tries to catch his breath. He doesn't seem to have noticed you noticing.

"Where is everybody anyway?" you continue, looking around and anxious to get started.

"Oh, there'll be some wrigglers and kids coming in for arts and crafts in a couple hours," Elizabeta explains. "School's still in, you know."

"I think I'll go around then. Can I leave my stuff here?"

"Sure," Elizabeta replies, "You can leave them in that closet in the back, nobody goes through there anyway."

"JAWSOM---E! I'll sea you guys in a bit!" you say with a knowing smile and a friendly wave.

"Okay, just be careful!" Elizabeta shouts after you.

The closet is a hallway down from a disused room and the back door, out of view of the main classroom area.

The "transformation" only takes a couple of minutes.

* * *

**== > Feferi: Be Bicuda.**

**Several Minutes Later  
Elsewhere in Cerebro Fogo**

Say what now? Why would you be a supervillain? You are actually Nymph, and right now you are perched in an alcove created by a low-hanging roof with a compact 2x3dent in one hand and a smart-shell-phone in the other, surveying your surroundings and primarily waiting for stuff to happen.

You are also perched there because even though you're only wearing the bare essentials of your superhero outfit without any jewelry or extra flourishes, it's quite simply hot as the sick fires right now. Such is the Southern Hemisphere in January. But at least it's quiet out. No thanks, perhaps, to the semi-legitimate security patrols still lurking below.

You remind yourself that you don't want them to notice you encroaching on their patrols.

Fortunately your experience in New York City evading your semi-legitimate security patrol guests from California translates well to the favelas, which are in essence a less-stable combination of Brooklyn's low-rises and the Bronx's projects. The only downside is that your precious bodies of water are either too narrow (pollution notwithstanding, you have had to spend quite a bit of time in New York Harbor) or too far away.

Of course, that's not what you're looking at right now. You've been concentrating, closing your eyes for a few seconds and opening them at times to see if there's anyone in trouble. You've had this power to detect, well, "life" for as long as you can remember if you can concentrate. Everything around you dims, leaving a sea of blurs against shadowed reality. Sentient life forces tend to show up as white blurs, representative as their ghosts. But these "ghosts" turn differing shades of red under varying levels of stress.

It's up to your judgment if that stress is due to the result of criminal intent or something less life-threatening like a construction site (and in the favela, construction can be life threatening in itself.)

You focus on a couple of life forces that just turned red, somewhere about ground level about a hundred meters from where you are. With a kick of a heel, you're off and bounding across rooftops with your trusty 2x3dent helping you keep your heels from slipping off-balance. The buildings here might be much shorter than New York's, but you never know if they're built right.

Below you, you can hear angry shouts and the faintest signal of a timid reply. Could be a robbery, could be a domestic dispute, could be nothing.

You hunch low as you land gracefully on a corrugated roofing panel, take a careful look over the scaffolding and come to a split-second judgment call.

It's not 'nothing.'

It's time to be the hero.

**== > Nymph: Be the hero.**

You cannot be the hero because you are about to be the victim. To be precise, you are a middle-aged human taxi driver and you are being held the fuck up. Not by traffic, but by a scrawny masked gunman who is demanding you hand over your take and using a 1911 pistol to reinforce his profanity-laced threats. You're facing him and you can see the rage he's trying to muster up in his eyes. He doesn't seem to be part of any robbery rings, but all those details are moot when you have a gun pointed at your vital regions.

You couldn't exactly say you _weren't_ expecting this. You've finally gotten your taxi patrolling the more profitable districts of the city, especially late night when the wealthier partygoers need to get back home. But you do kinda wish you had help right now because you've paid more than just your regular license and sticker fees to make sure this kind of thing _didn't_ happen to you down here.

The robber's tone gets louder and more frantic, along with his gun motions. If he's not careful, he might shoot you _before_ you hand the money over, rather than after.

You stammer that you're going to get it out of the tray under the dashboard.

Either way, you are not actually experiencing your life flashing in front of your eyes.

Instead it appears that someone has landed behind the robber, and the next few seconds seem to happen entirely in slow motion.

**== > Get help.**

You cannot get help because you are now Nymph and you are the one giving help.

You land behind the crook, having used your 2x3dent to guide you between the structures as you descended and absorb some of the shock upon your final landing.

The crook turns to face you, swinging his right arm out with pistol still in hand. The extra weight and overswing betrays the fact that he's a rookie.

His wrist slips deftly between two prongs, an advantage of having a double-trident with an adjustable form factor. The gun discharges as his wrist reaches the hilt. You flinch a little, although the bullet easily whizzes past even your hair. Your 2x3dent also allows you to control his movement to a degree, which you do by tripping him up with a leg sweep and pinning him to the gravel with a swing, his gun clattering away to the side.

"Oh my god...thank you!" the taxi driver whimpers, leaning against his vehicle from the shock of it.

"No need to worry, sir, this ---Evildoer's been hooked," is your satisfied reply.

This would normally be the part where people either thank you and run or just plain run. And either way is that's fine. But now he's trying to hand his cash to _you_ , and that isn't normal.

"Thank you Bicuda, here, take this," he says, clearly having NOT calmed anywhere near the fuck down since you got rid of his hijacking problem.

You R---E---ELY should have seen that confusion coming. Of course people are going to mistake the Nymph for the Barracuda. You're both tyrian-themed superpowered individuals and you know that Bicuda has similar-shaped horns - or at least shapes them like yours just for that "imperial" effect.  But the Barracuda even remotely siding with the law? That puts you off.

"Sea-ing justice surfed is my only reward," you give your standard reply. "And I'm not-"

"Please, Bicuda, take it! It's their take for the week!" Now he's panicking even more than the subdued thief is.

Okay now this is definitely not normal. Was he referring to those gun-wielding private contractors that were catcalling at you earlier?

"What? Who are-" You want to sound completely clueless, even though you're already familiar with-

"Bicuda!" Welp, never mind.

Speaking of gun-wielding private contractors, you turn to find three more of them led by a burly human wearing a tropical shirt under his kevlar, waving at you as they walk to you. And while you're looking at them, you hear the clinking and pattering of cash on the ground followed by the revving of a motor and the screeching of tires.

"Gained a little weight though-" the second one asks, before being elbowed by Mr. Tropical Shirt. "S-sorry. You got a new outfit, that's all."

"Hey, he don't mean anything by it," Tropical Shirt responds, before pointing down at the robber. "We heard gunfire and figured someone needed help here, but you've already caught us that sea scum?"

The would-be hijacker struggles a lot more than normal under the weight of the double trident, crying as he begs to be let go or turned in to the cops.

"Don't worry, he's not a threat anymore," you reply disarmingly. From the way you were easily able to subdue him, he probably wasn't too much of a threat to begin with. "I can take it from here."

 _Where_ you'll take him is a different idea altogether. You already know the cops around here and the next few favelas over aren't exactly too clean AND you don't know which ones will basically take him in for the night. You consider a spot where you'll give him a stern and lightly-veiled threatening talk before letting him go, but Mr. Tropical Shirt interjects before you come up with a location.

"Here's a better idea," the man in the tropical shirt says as he steps forward.

Your eyes almost bug out to fill your goggles as Tropical Shirt proceeds to administer a SPAS-12 blast into the hoodlum's face, splattering everything in a meter's radius with red.

"There, problem solved!" he replies with a sickening cheekiness before kneeling to pick up the blood-stained money. "Oh good, that _pez de chinelo_ gave us his payment too. Right on time."

You withdraw your trident from the gravel, the would-be criminal's corpse slumping back onto the ground. You can feel your arms shaking like the normally lightweight double trident suddenly became Death's scythe and just as heavy.

"We'll take care of the cleanup," Mr. Tropical Shirt adds non-chalantly, "Oh shit. Sorry if you got blood on your outfit there."

Sweat is mixing in with the blood and in larger quantities than usual because honestly you came out to do some good and you're feeling more attacked than when you had to deal with a Forelli mafia smuggling operation in Hoboken that also happened to be targeted by the Felt and the cops just happened to be distracted by the Felt's other distraction that night.

"Ai, Bicuda, something wrong?" the other goon asks.

You are at a complete loss for words. "No, no, it's just..."

**== > Nymph: GTFO.**

This you can do. Without another make a break for it, back up onto the rooftops, back into the favela depths and not waiting to hear the gunmen's reactions.

* * *

Several minutes later you've arrived back at the outreach center. As much as you _normally_ love being Nymph, you find yourself shedding your blood-stained outfit like a pupating wiggler's exoskeleton, wiping off as much blood as possible with the towel you brought and getting back into your "normal" clothing, wishing the entire outfit away.

"Feferi! You look like you've seen a ghost!" Elizabeta exclaims as soon as you make it back into the main classroom. "...is that blood on you!?"

As much as you tried, you couldn't wipe off everything.

"Who are those people?!" you exclaim, finally letting it out. "They're killing people in the middle of the street!"

"Oh, you ran into them?" Ptycho replies, seemingly not bothered by the mention of such an atrocity as he organizes announcement papers on a bulletin board. "This is the first time you've seen the milisssia, I take it?"

"...water they? Vigilantes?" You're trembling as you face him. Your legs are adjusted to jumps to and from unreasonably tall heights, but you feel like buckling. 

"Feferi, I'm sorry we didn't tell you earlier," Joao explains. "They moved in after a really big raid by the BOPE about a month before you got here."

BOPE's so-called 'pacification' raids happen on a regular basis, particularly before big citywide events, and make a big enough splash in the world news feeds that even you could keep track of them while you were trying to keep New York from succumbing to their inner horrorterrors. But the _milicia's_ presence, on the other fin, hasn't lasted long enough to even sneak onto the sentient-rights websites.

"They're..." you lean against a wall to try to regain your composure. "They're not like any of the gangs around here!"

"No they're not." The gecko-troll's voice goes from casually unconcerned to deadpan serious, and he's still not turning his attention away from the bulletin board. "The milisssia are sssomething worssse."

"...worse?"

You've had to swim in the same gill-chokingly dirty waters as criminal mobs of every different variety, along with a slew of equally gill-chokingly dirty cops and even dirtier politicians, but when he says they're worse, you know damn well he means it. You've never seen someone executed right in front of you in broad daylight while everyone else went on with their daily lives.

You might be a superhero that even has the transphysical embodiment of corruption as your lusus, but you do not want to know what he means by worse.

And what if this is the tip of the iceberg, in some almost cliched forboding manner?

"Look, I don't want to talk about it," he suddenly concludes, throwing you a brief glance and a somber expression.

"Oh. It's all right, I'm sorry," you reply, also looking away. You don't need him to tell you how much worse they are. You could make a half-educated guess it's part of the reason he covers himself up like that.

Joao puts his hand on your shoulder. You turn, and he looks you in the eye with actual concern this time. "Feferi, you should go home and get cleaned up, okay? The kids aren't going to believe that's paint."

"Oh...Okay, I'll come back tomorrow..." you whimper.

"I'll walk you to back the bus stop," Elizabeta volunteers as she holds your hand, "It's gonna be okay. Let's go get your stuff."

You haven't been here 24 hours and already you've witnessed a heartless public execution by people who genuinely believe they're on your side.

This isn't helping the favela up. It's not even "taming" them because likening these citizens to animals is cruelty in itself. This is caging them and hoping they lose the will to live, which tends to cause them to fight back even harder.

Things are not going to be okay, and it's only getting started.

* * *

**== > Can you be Bicuda yet?**

**Joa District  
2 hours later**

No, because you are Meenah Peixes and you are _trying_ to take care of business. But right now you are feeling quite aggrieved.

Not with the actual business at hand of course. Right now you are currently performing your quasi-imperial duties and waging a land grab.

And by 'land grab' you are currently touring a mansion that is on sale in your "presentable" casuals, making sure to check off all those mental boxes (and shit. All the mental shit. All of it.) Enough bedrooms, enough bathrooms, dining/party rooms, a swimming pool _and_ a view of the ocean, among many,  _many_ other amenities that should either be included or procured at a very short notice, usually from the other side of the world. Being imperial still requires an analytical eye, after all.

It used to be that the empress would perform such land grabs by actually leading hordes of loyal troops to seize whichever realm she saw fit, but hey, when you've got unlimited cash on hand buying up properties and flipping them like filet after a couple of fancy functions. People will still shell out big boonbucks for a mansion that's been "slightly lived-in" by royalty, and this poor agent  _should_ be sweating bullets,  _should_ be thankful that you've granted her an audience with you.

So far though, everything looks pretty good - or rather, they're "good enough" for you to improve once your secretaries wrap this beach up in tinfoil and give it a good searing. The paperwork that is. You wouldn't burn down a house with a view like this too quickly.

When that happens, the property values go down and you can get yourself an entire community to renovate. You've had that done before with tenements and slums around the state. You're actually doing that now, in a way, with the  _milicia_ out in the favelas here. You're kinda going to do that here, because come on, a high-class neighborhood like this doesn't deserve to be actually burned down.

All in all, this is looking to be a successful land grab - which is fortunately  _not_ the reason you are feeling aggrieved.

A few moments before _this_ very moment, you decided to celebrate another successful conquest by stepping out onto the pool area to take in some nice ocean air. You then proceeded to open your shellphone and check your social media feeds because you just can't live without the attention.

You've been following #Bicuda and its variants across several websites and associated topics on forums ever since you first put on top-shelf street punk clothes and decided to poke holes in random land dwellers. You've grown the Barracuda from just another struggling larva on the South American super-scene to a full fledged social media phenomenon, complete with (unofficial) branding and schools of wannabes from cosplayers to straight up imitators.

And if there's one thing that is giving you a pout so compact it could start a black hole, it's imitators.

The current trending pic of Bicuda is a camera photo of dubious quality, nothing out of the ordinary for spotters and fans tend to take. Only you  _don't_ recognize the silhouette of that outfit the Bicuda in the picture is wearing. You'd know if you'd worn something so unfashionable by the sole fact that you have simply never worn something  _that_ unfashionable in your  _life._

But it gets worse from there.

The photo depicts her  _stopping_ a robbery and, if the commentary is to be believed, she was also shocked when the  _milicia_  took care of the guy and absconded without another word.

This is resulting in people questioning  _your_ mettle in the face of the unwashed hordes of low-bloods and humans that you haven't hired to lay the smack down on other low-bloods and humans. And you absolutely, positively cannot have that happen. You cannot have your brand new private army wondering why its general is such a coward.

You...need a drink. You angrily clap your shellphone closed and semi-storm back through the house to your gold-plated Lamborghini waiting outside.

You'd go out there right now and get your hands dirty like a proper commander - but unfortunately you have a fancy gig to show up to and it will take more than a couple of hours to get blood off of you and then get your ass to the party.

At least you can get yourshellf a little crunk there to calm the glub down. _Then_ tomorrow you can get back to getting your hands dirty.

Things are going to be okay again. You'll just have to get started later.

**== > TO BE CONTINUED  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So fairly early on I learned that Feferi isn't exactly selfless when it comes to her ambitions for empress. The cuttlefish in bowls are more representative of coddling than actually caring, basically a different kind of condescension. Although she has good intentions - better than Meenah's Condesce anyway - we all know what road it paves.
> 
> So the story will basically have four flawed personages in Feferi/Nymph, Meenah/Bicuda, Gecko and Captain Kaviro all coming to the collision we see at the beginning...how they get there is up to me. ;)


	4. This Isn't A Party

**== > Feferi: Party!**

**50 stories above Zona Central, Rio de Janeiro  
6:27 pm**

You are Feferi Peixes and this isn't the right kind of occasion to party down in, at least in the sense Meenah enjoys it.

The sun is starting to set to the west, gleaming golden rays bathing the urban sprawl like pixels, with beachgoers either packing up or preparing to stick around for the parties down below.

Those would certainly be more interesting than the ones up here.

You're standing in the midst of a glass-and-marble rooftop lounge with a fully stocked bar, plush furniture made with presumably sustainable material, and enough VIPs and their wives/matesprits to supply a couple of committees on the National Congress. You're dressed in a tailored mauve-colored business suit and otherwise-sensible pink-rimmed glasses and a glass of water in your hand. Gotta stay hydrated in this heat, you know. Your hair has been braided up into, well, quite a few braids. It's almost like you have a sophisticated looking black tentaclebeast glued to your scalp. This is a fancy function, of course, all this is a requirement. And you are more than familiar with the requirements of fancy functions in both hemispheres.

You are currently attempting to engage in meaningful conversation with the party's guests, the majority of whom are older than you in both the human and troll timespans, and all either in tuxedos or highly fashionable social dresses. Most of them also feel quite comfortable with conversing with of the one of the most prominent clans in the Southern Hemisphere despite her opposing and more thoughtful political leanings. Or at least the one that isn't currently trying to convince herself that she's in one of the city's nightclubs.

And you indulge them with polite smiles in their conversations about the state of the city and overall state of Rio de Janeiro and how their opposition are trying to sabotage everything they've worked for. Sometimes even which celebrities attending may or may not be sleeping with whomever else. There are a lot of right-wing talking points subtly and not-so-subtly mixed in as responses, about being tough on crime and the need for better "interspecies cooperation" at helping the city put on a better face for tourists. Typical fare you're used to in conversations between the kind of privileged folks that socialize high above the masses, with only glass-paneled railing to keep them from exposure.

Definitely like New York City with the skyscrapers. Or a little more like Los Angeles, with that extra touch of flamboyancy.

Then one of the guests - a human councilman from a middle class neighborhood bordering a favela - openly mentions that "cannot wait to go down to Nova Prospite, now that the _milicia_ has really cleaned the place up."

And it catches your attention by profoundly disturbing you.

"Have you been down there?" you ask, trying to remain calm.

Of all the cringe-worthy talking points echoing through the chamber, this one was probably inevitable, since it is a current event.

"We have to campaign down there, Miss Peixes," the councilman replies reassuredly. "We have been down there a couple times already."

"I mean, have you sea-n how they treat people? I've been down there to-" You cut yourself off when you feel your eyes widening, because you're not going to betray your more intimate, firsthand knowledge of the subject. "I know what your confishtuents are saying about them!"

"This is a cold town, Senhora Peixes," the councilor says sternly, his colleagues nearby giving you glances of disapproval, "It's like in New York City, you can't treat matters with wiggler gloves in times of crisis. You have to do what needs to be done, even if it means taking a firm hand on it."

This discussion is going in a direction that almost sounds...like Eridan. You thought you left politics behind in New York. You've seen how Rikers and other prisons are basically culling factories (in the old Alternian sense, not yours.) But you'd really, R--E--ELY preferred to have left Eridan in Los Angeles. And you don't like how they try to treat you with fry gloves over this whole thing.

Fortunately, there is something else that keeps you from snapping like a low-grade fishing rod.

"Excuse me, I have to take care of my fishter."

* * *

**== > Meenah: Party!**

You are Meenah Peixes and for all you care, this is a party, even though you are dressed similarly to your fishter.

The mellow samba mix isn't exactly nightclub crunk, but there are at least a few other young and high-ish class (and high-ish-blood) socialites to at least accurately simulate the environment with. You figure you'll just do what you do, a little mackereling, dangling a few golden lures, and setting up the best one-night-stands their pitiful nooks and/or asses will ever experience in their sorry short lives.

As long as Tiburo keeps reeling in business connections, well, you're set with the ones on leisure.

At least until your fishter decides to play buzzkrill.

"M--E--Enah!" she shouts in that almost sing-song voice of concern as she fast-walks over to you.

The problem isn't that you don't enjoy liquor. You've found a way to control your drinking and mackereling. Nor are you unable to keep your side occupation from becoming part of your latest mixer either. The problem isn't even that it is a known biological trait seadweller trolls have biologically never responded well to liquor. Something about alcohol permeating the gills around your neck better than human lungs, causing seadwellers to feel the effects quicker and more intensely.

"Coddammit gurl," you reply, only the slightest hints of slurring in your raised voice from the whiskey mixer you just finished. "I'm just tryna enkoi myshellf here, okay?"

And when you're significantly frustrated over something, you tend to not have as much control as you like. But that's not the problem either, because the flipside of the great filet that is seadweller biology is that the body's response is to kick into overdrive when it comes to detoxification, which means you'll probably recover from this drink in terms of minutes instead of hours.

You're also probably making a scene and not a the kind of self-promoting congratulatory irons in your sick gossip fires.

"Come on, Meenah," she insists, putting her glass of water on the bar before wrapping your hands around your upper arms in a semi-hug, "Time to cull you sober!"

The problem is that for as much as your fishter LOV--ES to go on and on about her causes, you know better than to get her all pouty when she comes to visit. If you kept up this scene, she'd be dragging you out by your gillfins and there's something about her getting all pufferfishy that just nets you right in.

"Glub motherglubbing shit, fine," you drawl. "I'll come with."

You let her put her arm around your shoulder and vice versa, and make your way to the elevators.

"You know," she asks as soon as she presses the actual down button, "I know how you get when you're drunk, but this is...you're acting a little skifferent."

"I got problems, okay?" you sputter, "Resconchibilities." You might be drunk but not drunk enough to forget that loose lips scuttle Her Imperious Condescension's entire fleet.

"Resconchibilities?" Feferi chuckles so bubbly and jokingly it offends you deeply. "Finally getting invalved with your fishness?"

The elevator arrives in seconds. It's empty, which means only she'll be able to smell the alcodhol wafting from your gills as the two of you go in.

"Yeah, laugh it up, beach," you snarl as the doors closed. "But unlike up in New Fork, least I'm making an actual skifference."

Your little remark does have somewhat of a desired effect in that you can see her frown which elicits a good old-fashioned sharklike grin from in response. If you're going to get one over your younger spawn sibling today, this one might be it.

The elevator opens to the hallway where you keep your penthouse. It's a lobby in and of itself, with distinctive modern marbled pillars forming a dual entrance reacharound right to your door.

"I hope you are," she finally replies with a dismissive smile as the two of you slowly trudge to your near-penthouse.

You swear if she wasn't your spawn sibling, she might be trying to blackflirt with you. But it's all for the best. Her not knowing that is, not the blackflirting. Reminds you of her nagging ex-palemate and _his_ spawn sibling. Reely though, as long as she, everyone upstairs, and pretty much the rest of Rio State think you're just some vapid socialite, the better.

None of them will sea you coming when you step back on the throne. Well, not as much as you nearly miss not seaing the door.

"I bereef you've got your keycod," she acknowledges so smugly, to which you grumble close to a snarl and withdraw yours from your pocket. You tap the HID card against the door handles, and they unlock with a click that subtly echoes through the hallway before you open the doors.

Your near-penthouse in this tower is about as ostentatious as the penthouse you took Fef to when she arrived earlier today. The expensive minimalist furniture is jarred the hell out with fuschia, black and gold trim because everything needs more authentic gold trim.

You flop onto your sofa like a fresh tuna catch, even flailing about so it looks like you're getting into a more comfortable position as you curl up for a little nap, sliding those clamped-bass heels off with your toes. To be honest, you kinda needed this. You can't go out there and make these kind of big decisions based on impulse - even though that's kinda been working for you so far.

"We'll go and hang out somewhere after this, okay?" she almost sings as she leaves you there. You only groan in response as she closes the door behind her. The sharp thud the door makes as it latches seems to echo across the entire penthouse and into your temporarily intoxicated thinkpan.

You give yourself a minute to hook your bearings back in and make sure Fef's not waiting just outside the door with her own keycard to poke back in and make sure you've been properly culled. At least it gives you time to think about what you should be doing next. And in turn, you realize she kinda did you a favor of sorts. It's not like you really had to be there to represent the legit aspects of your empire, but you had to earn your wannabe-moirail some brownie points.

You adjust your twin braids and lay on your side, grabbing the remote from the coffee table in front of you to catch a channel surfing wave. The first channel on is some good old fashioned evening showbiz gossip, but they're not talking about your latest imitator. That doesn't stop you from cresting across as many channels as you can just to be sure that this is just a one-off. You eventually settle on MTV do Brasil playing the Top 20, and continue your search on your shellphone's social media apps.

It looks like your imposter has stopped choking the gills of the #LaBicuda tag for now. Maybe the militia did scare her off like every other imitator that either backs off at the slightest heat - or ends up deep fried and served to your grinning mug on a virtual silver platter.

You place the shellphone on the coffee table and kick back. Despite all this, you'll probably have to find a way to squeeze Bicuda into your family time, even if it culls you.

* * *

**== > Kaviro Morrah: Party!**

You are Kaviro Morrah and you're not partying because 1) this isn't a party and 2) if it were, you hate parties like this and would rather get culled than attend one.

That hasn't stopped you from attending this one, because you have to, for reasons previously explained.

For a rooftop function high above the Rio de Janeiro skyline in the middle of the afternoon in summer, you are reasonably dry and well-ventilated. Whoever manufactured your suit and deodorant has about as keen an eye to blueblood detail as the person who worked out the air conditioning up here...which is saying quite a bit, actually. Your custom left-handed Taurus PT92 doesn't feel like a block of ice against your chest, nestled in its holster between your suit and undershirt.

It works so well that you can only just make out the stench from the filth you have to share this rooftop patio with above the alcohol they're consuming. Not that you don't enjoy a good Brahma every now and then with your comrades to relax, but right now you're actually on-duty for the first time in what feels like a lifetime or two.

And with things being reasonably quiet, you can hang around close enough to the bar to order something to relax.

"How's things downstairs?" you say into your earpiece before you ask the bartender for some soda.

"Quiet. A little too quiet," is the reply of a casual voice about ten years/four sweeps your junior. Sergeant Vicente Braga was one of your top officers when you left, and although you're technically not supposed to be directly commanding BOPE as you normally did, they are required to keep an eye on any gathering that involves all these VIPs. And a little extra security wouldn't hurt.

"Just the way they like it here, Vince. How's Pental doing?"

"A bit antsy. Matteo told Paddles here that too much of that coffee is bad for him." Caprol Pental's one of the newer recruits, a blueblood like you with his namesake large hopbeast-esque horns that scrape the ceiling of the non-descript SUV they're waiting in. A little overeager, but that doesn't always translate to incompetence...after running him through his paces anyway.

Matteo Gracio is a curly ochreblood that used to be a _favelado_ himself, helped up by a scholarship to the college he studied in. He's a little more laid back for your liking but he doesn't ask too many questions. That he's a _favelado_ that joined the right side of the law is definitely a big plus in your book, at least.

"Good, just keep me posted," you reply as you sign the bill, noting a generous tip from your debit card and a polite nod and smile to the bartender.

You make your way away from the crowds toward an encroaching sense of deja vu.

From the shape of the horns, you can tell that's a Peixes making her way out of the elevator and making a beeline right over to the glass-paneled railing at the northwestern side of this sky-lounge, although it's not Meenah.

Despite having a shorter stature than you or her "sister," she looks like she's one of those seadwellers that spends more time underwater than, well, most seadwellers. And a lot of that time is spent tending to a lusus that's exempted from registration all around the world for reasons that cannot be described without fully compromising one's sanity. That kind of pressure and pressurization gives her a deceptively chubby build that suggests she could break someone's spine over her knee if she so chooses, much more than her spindly-looking "elder." And her hair...well, it's almost a wavy work of art. With the limitless funds at her family's disposal, she could definitely afford more than one stylist to ensure that every strand stays where they are.

"Not in the mood to party?" you begin as you approach.

Far from running through the same endless cycle of talk show buzzwords and buzzphrases with the rest of the clientele, you might as well do something to pass the time other than watch.

"No," she replies, gazing wistfully out at the desolation. "Not unless someone asks me to chat with them," she turns to face you with a sincere half-smile.

"Well, I hope you'll forgive me for not asking," you quip, to which she giggles.

"It's fin!" she replies. You furrow your brow and try not to cringe. Apparently the fish pun talk runs as much through her gills as it does with Meenah's.

"Kaviro Morrah. Department of Public Safety," you introduce yourself, briefly glancing at her before resuming your gaze northward. "Welcome to the top of Rio de Janeiro. And you are Feferi?"

She hesitates a moment before she replies. "Yes, Feferi Peixes," she replies with a friendly, almost bubbly smile. "Meenah's fishter."

Violet seadwellers aren't all that rare, especially in coastal cities and island nations. But tyrians like the Peixes clan and other extremely wealthy seadweller clans are not only super-rare but often so close knit that those spawned within a couple sweeps of each other refer to themselves as brother and sister like humans do.

"Ah, yes. I heard she likes to talk about you a lot," you explain, inferring that not of all of that talk is positive.

She chuckles in understanding. "Yeah, we've got our skifferences but we still share that bond."

You nod and try not to betray the fact that you've done your homework on most of these guests already.

Feferi's got differences with her sister, all right. Sure they're both inconceivably well off, but her face is plastered next to children on flyers for aid groups and NGOs instead of glossy tabloids and gossip websites in nightclubs. Helping and petitioning for the poor up in New York and down here, when she takes a portion of that time to visit, and likely circling her own wealth around to fund the campaign of one Maria Paz Vieira if it's not being continuously reinvested to "save the Amazon."

It's typical ivory tower liberal fare, but unlike most of those folks she convincingly genuinely believes that what she's doing is good, which makes it unlikely for her to be seen at a gathering for a cause that is the apparent antithesis of what she stands for.

Unless of course, she's here by someone else's volition, most likely Meenah's.

In a double irony reacharound, it gives you something in common with her. You're here by the crowd's volition too, to make them think less of their own insecurities by having the man in charge of the city's security hovering around them. Almost as if you're some kind of superhero to them...although if that's the case, you'd almost prefer being a supervillain if a certain Barracuda hadn't cornered much of Rio's market for that.

"I can see you share the same aversion to socializing with this crowd," you say analytically, raising an eyebrow as you gesture with your glass toward them.

"That's true. We're boat just here to make each other look good for the company." she shrugs. "I barely know most of them apart from Tiburo and maybe one or two guys who work for the governor."

Tiburo Sfyrna is the sturdily-built violetblood with the sharkfin horns, sharply-tailored gunmetal gray suit and sharktooth-patterned tie lounging on a couch, having a coffee-table discussion with fellow industrialists. He's the one running the day-to-day operations of Fabricas Peixes while Meenah is off either being a socialite or nursing her hangover, and about the only seadweller you'd look up to here for providing honest jobs with the company's recent expansions in Rio.

"Most of them aren't that important," you grumble, gesturing your glass of soda at the rest of the crowd. "Local talk show hosts, rabble-rousers. Celebrities, plastic surgeons for said celebrities...the works."

Not many of the younger celebrities would stand up on the "law and order" side of things, but with a skillful enough PR staff they could at least appear to do so while also "giving back" to the community. The miracle of American-style bipartisanship is really just marketing, but as long as they get their likes on social media to fill their vapid egos, they could really care less.

"And what is it you do?" she asks. "For the Desharkment of Public Safety?"

"I used to do the dirty work for this wretched hive of scum and villainy," you mutter before chuckling sarcastically and trying not to incriminate her out of cordial politeness, "At least that's what _certain_ people would say. Now I just hang around and drink and watch the dirty work happen."

She nods and looks away, and you understand. "Yeah, it reely says somefin when the view out this way is cleaner than the one up here."

The view from this side of the building gives you a nice panoramic view of the North Zone. Sometimes it even amazes you how much the favelas have grown over the years thanks to the urban migration caused by Brazil's sudden economic upswing. When the pendulum came back around, they didn't leave. Now it almost physically sickens you how much poison must be throbbing through the city's arterial roads between every class and supposed hemocaste. That's another thing you can agree upon - that all this venom and resentment is about the only equality to be found around here.

Of course, that's where your agreements end.

Because the way she hesitated earlier, she's been around long enough to know who _you_ are. Conversely, you knew she was asking you a loaded question. If she had a podium and a camera trained on her, she'd (still) be condemning BOPE and the crooks in suits they work for.

Although it does say something positive to the development of political discourse that the two of you could at least have some kind of casual conversation together. For a few moments, anyway.

"Captain, something's going down," your earpiece suddenly squawks with Matteo's voice. "We've seen at least three unmarked vans with the same plate numbers circling the building and one of them's just gone into the parking lot."

Your eyes widen as you turn away and freeze in place. "Shit," you almost sneeze into your microphone.

"What's wrong?" Feferi asks.

"Nothing...if you excuse me," you reply concisely, before immediately moving toward the nearest restroom.

"Shore thing," she replies and nods before turning her gaze back outward, with more than a slight suspicion that it isn't "nothing."

Sternly yet calmly weaving past the other guests toward the nearest restroom is as easy for you as it is weaving past panicked civilians in the narrow alleyways of the favelas. You make your way to the sink and give your face a good splash of water to sober yourself up from your complacency.

"Captain!" comes another exclamation through your earpiece.

"What is it, Matteo?" You try to keep your voice down. It's bad enough that you're not going to try to send all these guests into a panic.

"A couple of other vans just unloaded at the front entrance and the front desk already triggered the alarm.They're all gang members, no doubt. We're getting ready to move."

"Shit. They're already in the elevators," you reply, your words growing faster. You can feel your undershirt getting moist from the tension. "The express ones to the roof will be here really soon. We're going to need backup."

This is nowhere near good, and you've been in "not good" situations pretty damn often. Gang members love to kidnap local VIPs for ransom, striking even in upscale venues. They're tipped off by all their appearances and social media habits, so they can pretty much predict where they're going to be. But everyone here? You and the bodyguards are the lone rangers among a pack of very juicy cattle. The front desk staff are probably already dead from sounding the alarm.

Now your Taurus PT92 feels like a block of ice against your beating pusher. The only chill you'll feel as the sick fires approach - and this time, there won't be any backup.

"The PM are already on their way. You need us to get you out of there, Captain?" As much as you find it almost darling that they still refer to you by your previous rank, concerns like these are trivial at best.

The Polícia Militar do Estado do Rio de Janeiro are probably one of the few institutions in this city more corrupt and self-serving that these politicians, although that also means they'll put on their best effort - read, an actual effort - at efficiency when it comes to saving the people that gave them their jobs. Yours included. But if all these gang members are coming up here and planning to fight their way out with any number of VIPs, you'll want everything short of an air strike.

"We'll need the Skull for this one. Just keep an eye on the entrances and make sure _nobody_ gets out that isn't in a tuxedo, fancy dress or uniform."

"Copy that. Let's go, guys," Matteo replies before the radio goes dead.

You should be damn thankful the Governor himself isn't here because that probably _would_ bring in an airstrike.

Your hand almost gets to the door handle before you hear gunshots and screaming outside. The moment you hear them, the hand that was reaching for the doorknob is almost instantaneously flexing off the safety on the Taurus PT92 holstered under your tuxedo.

Welp.

==> **FILE END**


	5. Enough Surprises for Fifteen Minutes

**== > Feferi: Ascertain the situation.**

**50 stories above Rio de Janeiro**  
**6:45pm**

You are now Feferi and you don't need to ascertain the situation because you **are** the situation. Not the person from that particular reality series that Meenah was R--E--ELY into a few sweeps back, more like the noun. That is to say, about half a dozen gun-wielding masked thugs that appear to be favela residents have stormed the rooftop lounge, harpooned the bodyguards with hot lead and took Tiburo with them down the stairs. One of them went into the bathroom to find Kaviro Morrah, and the rest are keeping the other VIPs at bay.

You are currently being mistaken for their other target.

You have your hands up, and you're trying not to be scared as you process what they're saying in Portuguese. Instead you're trying to memorize as many details about your assailants as you can.

_"I thought you said Meenah would be here!"_ Red shouts to Olive.

Both of them are trolls, one red, one olive-ish from the color of their eyes. Both wearing balaclavas with horn shields, Olive's for a small set and Red's for medium. No scars or visible tattoos, although they're wearing casual hot weather clothes - shirts, shorts, sneakers. The olive one is wearing a Beforra 06 futbol jersey, so they're probably from somewhere near Cerebro Fogo. But that's all you can get from them. Red has a revolver, probably locally fabricated, and Olive has a worn but very much intact and no less intimidating shotgun.

_"This is her spawn sibling, dunpass. See the horn shape? They'll still pay a fortune just to get half of her back."_

Truth be told though, you're pretty damn scared. It never truly gets any less scary after your first time in danger, in or out of your superhero uniform, or whether the situation comes to you or vice versa. You've just gotten better at holding it in. It's not too far from the first time you've been held at gunpoint without your twin-trident at the ready.

This is the first time you've been held up in the middle of an event in the middle of the city though. It's not hard for them to figure out who you or your sister are. For-profit or non-profit companies alike want your face on it for advertising and making themselves look more charitable than they can be sometimes. And given how much Meenah loves to advertise where she is all the time, it's not hard for them to figure out where you're going to be either.

Which begs the question as to how they worked up the gumption to strike up here. Quite a few of the kids you've helped in the favelas would inevitably have _some_ connection to one of the local gangs, but it's practically suicide to strike in the heart of the Central Zone without enough firepower to fight their way out.

Of course, risk corresponds to reward, and with Brazil's economy on the downswing it means more of the economically disadvantaged are likely to take greater risks for an easy way out.

_"Is it me you want?"_ you inquire. _"We can talk about this, nobody else has to die-"_

_"They said the big skull was here too, wasn't he? BOPE will be here any minute!"_ Red adds.

_"Fuck it, we're taking her,"_ Olive shouts before he moves up to you and points the giving end of a 12-gauge inches from your goggles. _"Move."_

"Okay, I'll follow you," you reply clam-ly, taking careful steps away from the railing with your hands raised.

You might enjoy being a hero but now's not the time to suddenly engage hero mode. Not even with the 2x2dent compact Longinukind you keep on your person just in case. You can't risk collateral damage up here, even if you might not agree with the political views of the other guests.

"Hurry the fuck up, _caralho!_ " Olive replies, more panic evident in his shout as you start walking to the elevators.

They point out the guards' bodies and tell you not to try anything to show they mean business. These gangsters didn't need a warning before giving them a cranial lead injection.

You can't do anything for them anymore. Even if you could.

Kaviro isn't in the elevator. In your situation, you can only wonder why.

_"Wait,"_ Olive says to Red, _"Let's take the stairs. See if Meenah owns a penthouse below."_

Now you're scared. You know enough about kidnapping and hostage situations to know that being cooperative is the best way to buy time. And Meenah has never really been known to be cooperative, _especially_ while drunk.

You can only hope she's passed out.

* * *

**== > Meenah: Be passed out.**

You cannot be passed out because even though a bunch of lowblooded favela  _filhos da puta_ have gunned their way into to your sub-penthouse with your sister taken hostage you are not actually present in it like you were a few minutes ago.

You weren't even close to it, because up until the moment your sub-penthouse's primary flat-screen switched to the security cameras in response to the silent alarm triggered in the lobby, you were busy keeping up your little social media war with one of your many rival pseudoroyals-cum-socialites and possible blackrom flirts. Trizza Tethis down in Buenos Aires thinks she's _at least_ the second best memer this side of the old Alternian Empire and it's fun to keep up some semblance of the ancient intertyrian house feuds going even if there's no official throne to take.

When the sub-penthouse's primary flat-screen did switch to the security cameras in response to the silent alarm triggered in the lobby, all bets, frenemy fights and flirts were off. Like, off as quickly as you sat the fuck up and dropped your shellphone on the rug between your counch and the coffee table.

Not only are they crawling over the roof like a bad infestation of six-legged shellbeasts, they're taking Tibby and Fef hostage, treating them both like giant living moneybags.

This _abubblesolutely_ cannot stand.

First off, that's how _you're_ supposed to be treating everyone that doesn't have fins or gills, not the other way around. Second, Ol' Sharkface being held ransom will not do well for the company's bottom line, and yours by extension. And most importantly, when they're not dueling for a throne that currently does not officially exist - specifically, the kind of the duels that haven't been reduced to comic book fantasy - _royals gotta look after they clamily, yo._

When a bunch of masked goons blow off the door locks with a shotgun, you are already gone, getting ready to make your next move.

So right now, we obviously cannot be you at the moment.

* * *

**== > Kaviro: Be him then.**

You are Kaviro Morrah and you've got a better handle on the situation than you did only a few minutes ago. You knew you couldn't just go out there with guns blazing. Not when you're only one guy up against a squad of gangsters. You have to pick your battles, whether in the planning room or a rooftop lounge restroom.

You duck behind the doorway so that the moment one of them kicks down the door you can drag them in, get them in a chokehold and then knock them the fuck out with a good Taurus PT92 pistol whip. That human's Glock semi-auto clatters to the ground, thankfully without discharging. You pick it up just in time to hear a noise from the stall.

Apparently another bodyguard had been taking a number two - and took it real fast when he heard the shit outside the stall getting quite real.

The moment he makes eye contact with you, you put a finger to your mouth in order to preemptively keep him quiet. Your other hand is dragging the unconscious hoodlum into a stall. The bodyguard complies and watches the door, drawing his own Taurus PT92 while you ziptie the hoodlum to the nearest toilet seat. You didn't think you'd need the zipties for anything more than a rowdy drunkard at this type of party, but now you're thankful you brought them with you.

When the two of you leave the bathroom, the hoodlums are already gone - but you can't tell who they took until they tell you.

"They took Sfyrna and Feferi!" one of the VIPs shouts. The surviving bodyguard puts his sleeve to his mouth. The stench of death isn't as evident as the stench of alcohol breath but the sight of his dead comrades is enough to get him to be sick.

"Downstairs?"

"They took Feferi downstairs to look for Meenah," a councilor adds. "Tiburo went down the elevator."

Shit. The PMERJ and your squad are probably already downstairs getting ready to head off the guys that took Tiburo. But you also know that Meenah loves running her mouth so much that they'll kill her just so she doesn't boast about being kidnapped all over social media.

"You," you bark to the bodyguard, "Can you help me there?"

"I'll catch up," the bodyguard replies, only a few seconds from keeling over, "I need to keep my lunch in."

You nod and head to the nearby emergency stairs. It doesn't surprise you that a lot of these bodyguards are glorified bouncers, although you can tell which ones definitely used to be BOPE - and he's definitely not one of them.

The lock has been punched in and the alarm activated, so you know that they went down this way. And if you know Meenah, the first place they're likely to look is the penthouse on the floor below. You reach the first level down, quietly peering through the emergency exit door to the hallway.

"Did you get that?" you mutter into your earpiece as you withdraw.

"Yeah. They went right for the big fish," Vince replies, as quietly as you. "They knew who they were looking for, but nobody's left yet."

"I'm tailing the guys that got Feferi. They're looking for Meenah below," you add procedurally. "Keep me posted."

"Roger, Captain."

Your head immediately cocks toward the faint shouting echoing through the hall, which leads to a single open door under a gilded doorway.

This is _definitely_ one of Meenah's residences. You can see the sun glinting off the gold-trimmed furniture from the elevator.

The moment you enter though, you realize Meenah isn't here. Furniture and items are knocked over, you can spot her closed shellphone on a coffee table beside a TV playing security camera footage, but she's not _physically_ here. She probably did something smart for once and bolted down the stairs while the other goons were on their way up. Or there's a panic room lodged into this horrifically ostentatious penthouse that you don't know about, although you wouldn't put it past her to have a big sign that says 'PANIC ROOM' in bright neon letters just to mock them.

That leaves you and the goons.

And Feferi.

"Shit! It's the Skull!" you hear one of them shout. You duck behind the minibar because you know - and hear - gunshots following quickly, shattering some of the bottles behind you. You huddle low over the top of the bar and return fire in their direction.

"They got the door covered, I need to reload!" You can spot the entrance door from the minibar, and the brief flash of the bodyguard's suit as he takes cover.

The two would-be kidnappers are panicking - rookie nerves. They're heading out the only other doorway to the balcony.

_"Fuck! He's cornered us!"_

Green-blood points his shotgun at you. He barely raises it before you've raised your PT92, planted three in the center of mass and then aimed it at the one holding Feferi in a classic arm hold.

"You've got nowhere to run!" you threaten, staring cold down the sights of an even colder gun into this _filho da puta_ 's burgundy eyes. "Put the gun down and let her go!"

_"No, Captain Skull! You let me pass and I won't shoot her!"_

You can spot the bodyguard advancing up to your right just out of the corner of your vision. At least that means there isn't anyone else hiding in the sub-penthouse.

_"It's just you and me! Put the gun down and we can all leave here!"_

The only problem is that Feferi Peixes is also smack-dab in the middle, caught between this asshole's arm and his cheap revolver. Forget the governor. If that trigger gets pulled, then not even Gecko and La Bicuda putting aside their differences will stop _Meenah_ from never, _ever_  letting the entire Southern Hemisphere live it down.

"You kill her, then you'd better hope you die too," the bodyguard threatens. "You don't know who you're fucking with!"

_"I got nothing to live for, motherfucker, let's go!"_

He's panicking. You've got your ironsights between his eyes but he could still take Feferi out through the gills in a deathly reflex. You'll need to find an opening.

Then, suddenly, motherfucking miracles. As it were. Almost in slow motion.

A shiny chrome 2x3dent suddenly jams itself into the guys' forehead, two of the three prongs gruesomely fitting into his eye sockets. It's enough grip for him to suddenly let go, firing his gun up toward the concrete before it clatters to the ground. You and the bodyguard flinch out of reflex, Fef drops to the floor, and the source of that 2x3dent jumps onto the railing behind them as he stumbles back.

She's barely a blur that lasts five seconds, and she never turns to face you, but you recognize that fuschia-trimmed street armor and twin tentacle-like braids anywhere. You can see she has new boots on her outfit - what part of her outfit _doesn't_ change every time she's sighted? - because they did a good job of helping her balance on that chromed railing before jumping off.

The two of you rush to the railing to catch the last of the poor bastard's plummet into traffic below. The multitude of open windows below and the lack of a second body falling means that she ricocheted back into the building.

"That who I think it was!?" the bodyguard exclaims as you withdraw.

"Yeah, and I don't think she was supposed to be here," you grumble, before turning to Feferi. "Miss Peixes, are you all right?"

"I'm fin." She's taking deep breaths as she gets up and leans on the railing. You can tell she's been through this kind of situation before, which means she can handle it. In the meantime, you walk over to the gangster whose corpse is making an olive mess across the tile and pick up the shotgun. It's still got a few shells left in it.

"All right," you reassure her before handing the shotgun to the bodyguard, "Get her back upstairs so she can get evacuated, I'm going to find Meenah and Tiburo."

You're already on the move back through Meenah's penthouse, but you stop by the giant LCD screen still playing its security feed. This time the feed goes to the lobby, where the PMERJ have proceeded to move in with a few well-placed gas grenades.

"Jegus fucking Christ. Somebody just caved in the roof of a car across the sidewalk," Matteo suddenly calls. "What happened up there?"

"The Barracuda left you guys a present and saved Feferi," you confirm.

"Goddamn. Okay, they haven't left yet." Matteo replies. "The PM are going through the front, as usual. Have you seen Meenah?"

"Not yet. She has a live security feed in her own suite so she must have snuck out," you reply, analyzing the footage to see if she's still somewhere in the building.

"Well, we haven't seen her leave and the PM would know if they see her," Matteo adds, "They've shut the garage entrance but the shutter they're using looks pretty pathetic."

You still can't spot her anywhere on any of the footage windows as the bodyguard escorts Feferi back into the room, asking her politely to use the other gangster's revolver. The younger Peixes seems to be holding her own, although she repeatedly refuses to use the pistol as she looks almost wearily back at the corpse on the balcony like he shouldn't have died. Either that or she still can't believe or accept exactly how gruesomely she was saved.

"They'll figure out how to open it," you order through your earpiece as you press the button for the elevator, which opens almost immediately to you. "Swing around to the garage and tail them if they break through."

"Roger, captain." Vince responds, "Where are you headed?"

The elevator opens with a ding. That it worked at all was the primary surprise. The gangsters probably would not have known how to completely shut down the elevator system unless they gave themselves away by pulling a fire alarm. And if they haven't done so, then the cops arriving in the lobby right now would be doing the same. As for the elevator opening, anybody who stepped out would have had a 9mm pistol pointed through their ears, which fortunately does not happen.

You slip into the elevator, punch the respective button and reply simply, "Level B1. The PMs are already moving down the stairs. Get ready to cut them off."

First the gangsters, then the Barracuda, you've had more than enough surprises for fifteen minutes. And that's including that one operation where this one gang figured out how to make IEDs. You've got half a mind to deliver some yourself, the rest of that mind focused on checking that your extra magazine is still in its tuxedo and making sure not to forget the mental count of how many bullets are left in the current one.

"Captain," Vince adds, over the sound of a revving motor, "I think I saw the DA walk into the front lobby."

Okay, maybe you'll have to put up with one more...

**== > FILE END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I originally had the rest of the hotel scene generally plotted out but had to cut it off there for a cliffhanger. I also apologize for my lack of special forces tactics familiarity.


	6. A Statement of Your Own

**== > Kaviro: Take care of things.**

**Somewhere in Vidigal, Rio de Janeiro**  
**30 seconds earlier**

You are currently Gecko, it is a sweltering summer afternoon down in Rio's dregs and as sweat tries to escape your body with the assistance of gravity you are currently trying to take care of things.

Specifically, you are going to take care of the three _milicia_ members prowling the vicinity trying to take care of _you_. They might have armor and brand-new weaponry and specibi, but you can access all three dimensions of movement easily, your curiously reptilian reflexes and grip allowing you to stay just one careful step ahead and plenty of careful steps above your intended prey. You just hope the overhangs and makeshift "bridges" between each of these buildings don't cave in on you again.

Getting them to a relatively isolated place away from potential collateral damage isn't the hardest part, neither is taking them down. The irony is that honor would go specifically to picking your targets.

The _milicia_ have gotten their filthy claws into Vidigal after the Deputy Secretary's upgraded BOPE wiped out the gangs. The rampant profits from taking over all the gangs' former rackets allow them to dangle a nice tasty carrot for all these innocent people along with a nailed bat for those that step out of line. It's gotten a lot more dangerous for you to operate here, which is saying a lot in a place where capture means a guaranteed protracted torture and death.

Unlike BOPE who come in and out, or the gangs that hang around 24/7, these _filhos da puta_ are always around - but they only come out whenever they have business to conduct or have a token patrol to send around.

And that would normally be fine. As what the authorities call a _fantasiado_ , you technically have to stay as hidden as the _milicia_ yourself. Danger is at the top of the job description, and anybody putting a gun to your fellow citizen's head - gangsters and cops and those in-between are all just different colored uniforms of thug to you - is always a priority target.

But then there's the black market. You've been generally fine with the parts of it that help your fellow citizens gain services that the "beach-slugs" take for granted, while you keep weeding out the parts of the black market that try to sell them harm or try to gouge them for extra profit.

The _milicia_ have managed to monopolize both parts. Despite the fancy weaponry pointed to their heads, they can't bite the hand that feeds them, and the local politicians who normally just turn a blind eye when a  _fantasiado_ takes on the gangs are turning both a blind eye _and_ getting endorsements in return from the _milicia,_ which finally allows them to not look as much like hypocrites as they did endorsing the _fantasiados_.

At least getting killed by the gangs would make you a martyr. Get killed by the _milicia_ and the politicians will convince the people that you deserved it.

You can't simply pick any target when you know they'll retaliate against the first poor bastard they think ratted them out to you.

Your only advantage is that La Bicuda being their mascot means they'll send people directly after you anyway - and you can "defend" yourselves against them easily, even though your costume isn't exactly built for protection. It's really however the fuck you can sew together something and slap on horn concealers that doesn't betray your identity to the rest of the populace while not inhibiting your movement. You drew your inspiration from a similarly-dreadlocked green-themed character from an anime, so you can't exactly say costume design is your forte.

But you'll need to find a better way of taking care of things.

**== > Gecko: Find a better way to take care of it.**

* * *

**48 stories above Zona Central  
**

You are now Feferi Peixes and you are being taken care of, per se.

There hasn't been anyone trying to get into Meenah's exorbitantly blingy penthouse since Captain/Secretary Morrah and La Bicuda saved you from those kidnappers in a very graphic manner. One of the surviving bodyguards from upstairs is waiting by the door with a 12-gauge taken from the kidnappers, although he seems clearly distracted by Meenah's interior design choices.

You've tried to be a patient little ex-hostage, but with Meenah's shellphone on the carpet in front of the couch where you're sitting and the security feed directly above it, you have been feeling the N--E--ED to do SOM--EFIN about it!

That opportunity arrives when you hear a light cough - and having your eyes on the guard at that moment, you know he wasn't the one that did it. It must have been-

"Where are you going, Miss Peixes?" he suddenly says, holding his free hand out as you get up and make a beeline for the balcony where the kidnapper is almost starting to bake in the evening sun.

"Someone needs kelp!" Meenah and Tiburo need help, of course. But you know you're not currently in a position to do that. You hope you're fortunate enough to help someone else though.

You easily step over the dried trickled-out blood and kneel by the would-be hostage taker. You can see his eyes glazing over as his chest heaves and spasms, the scent of oliveblood decay starting to twist your olfactory nerves.

Captain Morrah hasn't gotten rusty after leaving BOPE. Three 9mms to the center of mass, standard method for culling attackers (in the traditional sense). But it looks like only one of them actually went into something vital. You're no field surgeon, but you've also got a little alternative method that you've often been reluctant to use. You press one hand to his chest and-

"Miss Peixes, the police are arriving upstairs," the bodyguard suddenly interjects, "We have to-"

"No, wait!" you shout, looking at him with determined eyes, "He's gill breefing!"

"He won't last much longer now. Just leave him," the bodyguard replies solemnly, gesturing a casual wave off.

"Well he shelldn't have to die alone!" you reply excitedly, almost frantically.

"All right then. Let me just make sure he doesn't have any extra weapons on him." the bodyguard replies, before he kneels opposite you and pats the guy down.

It's hard to conceal more than a pistol underneath that kind of attire - and even then people could simply interpret that the poor guy was simply happy to see them. But even though the bodyguard doesn't find anything, you can't help but see a brief likeness to a scavenging featherbeast the way he's sort of hunched over with the shotgun.

"Nothing," he mutters. "All right."

"Just, reef me alone right now..." you add resentfully.

"Sure thing Miss Peixes. I'll watch the door until help shows up," the bodyguard replies before heading back inside, stepping over the dried puddle of blood as not to get it all over his boots.

You turn your glance back to the kidnapper, still in his mask. You can see his eyes turning to look at you like you're the grim reaper or a priest(ess?) giving the last rites.

"It's gonna be ocray," you tell him softly, reassuringly, "You're gonna live through this."

You concentrate as you put both hands softly over the worst wound in his chest. You haven't got enough time to try this method on all his wounds, but if you can work on the worst one, it should buy him enough time to arrive on an operating table instead of the coroner's slab.

Hopefully, you could...

* * *

**== > Could what?**

**Floors below, but not too many...**

You are now Kaviro and you wish you _could_ _not_ have to deal with 'the DA.' Not the District Attorney as the Americans call the acronym. Their equivalent here is the state-level public prosecutor, although _they_ to take sides with those pesky activists too.

You eye the elevator level screen. The building is upscale enough that the screen displays highlights and events going on in the area as well as the level number. The elevator control panel also features the requisite emergency intercom for those that need help. You do need help of course, but in the form of backup when you're about to face what is still likely to be a team of kidnappers.

"Captain Morrah, glad you're safe," comes a voice over the intercom. A male voice, just finished going on middle age that is procedural enough to mostly disguise sarcasm and resentment, which is perfectly timed with the screen suddenly blinking that the elevator has been commandeered in emergency mode and is on its way to the lobby

"Fuck. Three levels more..." you growl to yourself as the B1 button switches off, before pressing the intercom button. " _Feferi's_ safe. Where are Meenah and Tiburo?"

"We've just confirmed both Peixes girls are safe in the penthouse," the voice adds casually. You raise an eyebrow in response and wonder if Bicuda went and rescued her too. She probably would, after all they seem like two little decadent pearls from the same rotten ex-imperial oyster. "We have Sfyrna and the rest of the kidnappers cornered in the parking garage."

Every member of Rio's finest has a stain on them, especially if they want to move up in the organization. This is expected. You know you did too before you made it into BOPE, although you could safely say you were one of the few that could find a way to live with both your ideals and reality.

But while you believe you cleansed yourself through cleansing favelas of drug cartels with the most extreme of prejudice, 'the DA' genuinely believes he can clean up the city and departments from within. Despite looking like one of the cleaner faces of the institution, you strongly suspect that he's probably either that high up on the food chain or has that many connections to keep him from being comparatively high up on the other corrupt cops' hitlists.

Right now you don't have time for internal affairs, not when there's still a hostage to rescue.

The elevator opens up to the lobby and you are almost tempted to draw your gun on whoever's at the door.

'DA' stands for **D** etective (actually, Investigator) **A** mauro Paredes of the _Policia Civil_. Whenever there is something big going down involving either side of the law, he tends to show up to clean up your messes. When it happens to involve you and BOPE, your surreptitious capture of Gecko months ago was an exception to his showing up on time, thank Gog.

Unfortunately, he seems to have made up for that by showing up early today. You recognize his receding hairline, light-ish skin tone and an expression he has to force himself from caving into a sneer as soon as the door opens.

"Detective Paredes, _my_ safety is not _your_ concern," are the first words out of your mouth as you spot him standing by the up button, giving him the faintest hint of an eye-twitching glare with your PT92 still gripped in both hands.

The lobby hasn't been _too_ wracked by the violence. Once the kidnappers saw the PMERJ tossing in smoke grenades, they appear to have fired a few shots back and bolted for their getaway rides. The receptionists also appear to have escaped in the chaos. Hopefully. But a little cleanup and they'll be back in full operation in a week.

"No, but the guests' safety is," he replies sternly, hands on hips as he follows you out of the elevator. While he clearly doesn't like your set of allies anymore than you do, he's willing to cross that aisle in order to spite you. "I admire your risk leaving your flock for your missing sheep, but my men are already on their way up to take care of it. We can take it from here."

" _And_ downstairs?" you ask, flicking another glance at him as you make your way across the lobby to the parking lot stairs.

"The parking lot's been sealed off. The garage door is locked, they're trapped with my officers, and we've got a negotiator coming in."

"Good, then they won't mind a little backup," you reply without hesitation before speaking into your earpiece. "Team. Suspects are about to make their exit, weapons hot. I'm on my way, ETA 30 seconds-."

" _Secretary_ Morrah, you acted in personal self-defense. This is the police's jurisdiction now, and you're not going to call up your goddamn Skulls for another bloodbath."

The nerve of this loadgaper is grating on you today. "The VIPs requested extra security, Investigator," you scoff, glaring back at Paredes before storming out the front door. "I'm going to debrief them right now."

"Sir!" a sergeant calls out over the radio, with gunfire in the background, "The garage barricades are going down!"

"Get them back up! Who do we have covering the east entrance?" Paredes turns around to head back and manage the situation as it begins to spiral out of his control. "Oh, goddammit!" is the last thing you hear before you step out onto the sidewalk.

The tropical heat greets you again as you round the corner past the other officers, the emergency services scraping a burgundy-blood corpse off a collapsed car, and the growing crowd of cordoned-off civilians and press trying to record these events, toward a group of what appear to be three plainclothes officers with kevlar vests and MP5s stationed by an inconspicuous white sport-utility vehicle.

These audacious lowlifes think they can escape before the big guns arrive.

How can they... _when they are already here?_

**== > Kaviro: Make them pay.**

* * *

**48 stories up**

You are now Feferi Peixes and why would you make this poor soul pay? Dead trolls don't learn lessons. If they try to commit criminal acts, it's your duty to make them face justice regardless of their sentient species, societal caste or blood color. Even if the justice system they're fed into is more unevenly applied here in Rio than it's already unevenly applied in the United States.

But you'll have to deal with the underlying social issues later. Right now you're dealing with making sure this would-be gunman makes it out of this building alive.

He's breathing now, the worst of his wounds no longer affecting the most vital regions of his body. Whatever you did suddenly has you more tired out than the adrenaline withdrawal from the preceding events. But knowing someone's alive to make it to a courtroom instead of the morgue helps you deal with it as you hold his hand with your dry hand and shoosh him with your other, assuring him that he's going to make it.

"Feffy, bay-by! They didn't krill you!" The voice makes you stand up and turn around, carefully letting go of the surviving gangster's hand. Meenah's made it back to her apartment, still in her suit and flared-rim pink eyeglasses but looking not too worse for wear, all things considered.

And for once, you're not surprised that Meenah is actually happy to see you're okay. She's been escorted down here by two PMERJ officers who are now disarming and debriefing the bodyguard. Once they got distracted, she ran up to you. She puts her arms out to hug you, you put your arms out to accept, but then she stops, take one look at your right hand and makes the mental connection with the body near you.

"Damn girl, you been tryna fuck someone up whale I was out!" she asks as you look at your hands. The one you used to apply pressure to the gangster's wound has a light, dried coating of his olive blood on it. "An' here I was finkin' you were some kinda harmless little puffer!"

"No!" you reply, giving an embarrassed wave. "You know I'm not _that_ culling kind! But where W--ER---E you all this time?"

"Bitch you know I'm smart 'nuff not to get my wastechute harpooned when the bullets start flyin'! Soon as alarms start ringing, I'm swimmin' the fuck downstream!" Meenah snaps her fingers before she puts her hands on her hips. "But, he's dead and you're alive so that's all that fucking matters, right? Get over here!"

The two of you resume your interrupted hug and as she weaves her arms around your neck and carefully behind your hair. You lay your chin across her shoulder as you embrace her and for a few seconds, mostly everything is beautiful and it's all over. At least until you hear a digitized camera-flash sound behind you and Meenah pulls back, suddenly typing on her shellphone.

"Did you just take a shellfie just now?" is your surprised question.

"Shell yeah bitch! This a flowment that's gotta be shellebrated!" she laughs, as she reads what she's typing out loud with both thumbs. "Mufuckas tryna put me and @cuttlefishCuller in tha ground tonite but #ImASurfivor so SUQ ON IT. #KeepinItReais"

She shows you the results of her immediate handiwork took the "shellfie" while she was hugging you, a wink, a middle finger and a raspberry to her intended audience - socialites and syndicates alike. In the time between her posting it and showing it to you, barely a few seconds at most, it's already gotten double-digit numbers of likes and comments.

You don't know whether to be entertained or shocked at how she seems to be superficial to the point of being utterly blasé about matters of life-and-death, even if the two of you generally have to face these kind of threats on a regular basis, actively or passively.

"Miss Feferi, do you need assistance?" one of the PMERJ officers announces as he walks up to the two of you.

"I'm fin, thank you," you reply, before turning your head in a gesture to the downed gangster. "I bereef _he_ might, though!"

The officer raises an eyebrow. "Okay. We'll get the paramedics up here," he replies, more in deference and a desire to not dissatisfy you rather than out of concern. You also get that a lot. "In the meantime, you'll need to come back to the roof with us so we can set up the evacuation."

"C'mon, Fef," Meenah semi-whines as she slides her shellphone back into her suit's inside pocket. You'd think she'd have kept at least one spare on her person in case she somehow lost the one she held. "I'll call someone to scrape that chumbucket off my balcony and we can enjoy some Netflix and krill when errbody reefs, okay?" she asks, trying to appeal to your sisterly instincts.

You cave horrifically.

"Okay. But please don't cull him," you sigh, giving the officer and Meenah that 'please?' look before you go with them.

You know they get your fish puns. You also sadly know that they know "cull" in the sense that it's always been, but for now you'll have to go with the flow, bayby.

You pick up one of the unused kitchen dish towels on the way out to get the blood off your hands. As you pass through the destroyed doorway back to the hallway that leads to the elevator, you give one glance back at the other officer and bodyguard staying behind.

You hope they'll be okay.

**== > Feferi: Just relax for now. You'll be okay too.**

* * *

**Street level**

You are now Kaviro Morrah and you cannot relax. You and your plainclothes security squad are stationed by the entrance of the main garage door as the cylindrical anti-vehicle barricades lower themselves. You can hear the revving of an engine from within, but it's faded. Lieutenant Matteo is behind you on the garage door's right side, MP5 at the ready and his rustblood eyes glinting a fiery copper in the late summer sun. Sergeant Pental - whose horns really aren't _that_ big from this distance, stacks up behind the deceptively lithe Sgt. Vicente opposite you.

"Get ready, team," you say into your earpiece. You all might be out in the open, but the combined background noise still makes the earpieces a necessity.

You briefly wonder whether they do somewhat resemble the _milicia_ in plainclothes and facemasks to conceal their identities. You could also switch their kevlar vests for tuxedos and they could also blend right in with the VIP's standard bodyguards apart from their combat boots.

The garage door opens to interrupt your wandering and the first thing you hear and see as you briefly check the corner is the van rounding the ramp up from below. The SUV your team arrived in is parked across the sidewalk. It's technically "company property" and not a body-on-frame, so using it as another barricade was out of the question.

"Take it out!" you shout as the van accelerates toward what the driver thinks is freedom.  
   
The van doesn't even make it up the exit ramp, not when it's pretty much driving into you and your squad's firing lines. The one downside to picking a plain container van to be inconspicuous is that it doesn't have bulletproof glass.  
  
The driver loses control immediately after he loses all brain function, the immediate result of a short burst of 9mm rounds through the facial cavities, crashing the van into the barricades by the ticketing booth. The gangster riding shotgun ducked below the dashboard as soon as the garage door opened, but the impact causes him to slump out of the passenger side door.

"Move in, secure the van before his buddies get up here!"  
   
You take cover at three pillars down against the driver's buddies getting out of the van and ducking behind the pillars. You peek out of your left side and count at least four more goons running up in one, two, one from the ramp leading down to the next basement level. They clearly couldn't get to their rides downstairs in time before the other cops got them. Your squad lays down covering fire, forcing the scumbags to distribute themselves among the parked cars for cover.

You spot an opening when the goon next to a blue sports coupe three pillars down ducks to reload and gesture to Matteo to close the flank. He nods and you duck low for what is supposed to be an easy sneak to the pillar in front of you, where you can properly introduce yourself to the scumbag behind the car.  
   
You take cover behind the next pillar, check your gun, and then time slows down as your inability to cover all corners at once comes dangerously close to fatally biting you, in the form of a masked goldblood goon - you can see his eyes - and the nozzle of a 12-gauge drawing in your gaze immediately to your right. He probably moved up the same time as you, too.  
  
The fact that you did not see this coming, despite all your training, is a sign that you are quite simply getting too old for this shit.  
  
A gold-colored blotch suddenly appearing on that goon's side followed by a loud cry of pain also indicates that luck is on your side, in the form of the proverbial cavalry. You use the moment his aim slips away to pull him toward you, behind the pillar, and swipe his legs out from under him, taking the shotgun in one hand and pistol-whipping him in the forehead with another.  
  
"Thanks," you bark to Matteo frustratedly as you get back into cover.

Matteo only nods, before focusing return fire on the remaining scumbags. The other ones got scared when you took out their buddy with the 12-gauge. They know they can't retreat back toward the PMERJ at this point, probably out of adrenalin-charged foolhardiness kept alive by the gunshots ringing in their ears across this concrete echo chamber.. But they're not foolhardy enough to get past BOPE's big boss. That allows the four of you to flank them and cut them off, to surround the van with reasonably good accuracy.  
  
The last thug finally goes down with a shot to the shoulder, causing him to drop his gun as his arm goes limp. He moans and groans and drags olive-colored blood across the pavement as he squirms.  
  
"Clear!" Pental shouts, sweeping the area with Vicente. "Let's get Sfyrna out?"

"Checking now!" Matteo barks back as the two of you cross the parking lot and head to the back of the van from the passenger side, yanking the door open to check on their would-be cargo.

For an executive with a 12+ hour work day but barely pushing the middle tens, Tiburo Sfyrna would normally cut his namesake's predatory figure with his athletic build bordering on muscular, shark-tail shaped horns and razor-sharp pinstripes. But the collision with the pillar threw him forward across the floor to the driver's seat. He's dazed, but not unconscious. With that bag over his head and zipties around his wrists and ankles, he somewhat reminds you of freshly-caught tuna.  
  
"Yeah, he's fine," Matteo confirms as you carefully pull him out and help him up, pulling the bag off his head. He leans on the wrecked getaway van hyperventilating like a shark out of water as Matteo whips out a combat knife from his kevlar and cleanly slices off Sfyrna's zipties.

"Good. Mop up here." You flick a hand gesture from the group to the still-alive bodies of the gangsters.

"No you don't!" Paredes suddenly appears around the corner from the ramp downstairs with a couple of his own officers in kevlar. "We've already rounded up the rest of the gang downstairs," he adds angrily.

Of course they have. It was stupid enough of them to try to ambush a VIP gathering, and now they'll be groveling for mercy before they end up in Bangu Federal as their own rivals' cellmates. Paredes might have the best intentions, but sometimes it's best to not inform him of what kind of road it leads down.

"Yeah, not like they'd make it past us anyway-" Matteo begins before you raise a closed fist to your side to shush him.

"Shit, we got a runner!" Vicente suddenly calls out, diverting your attention to the entrance.

Some lowlife in an Alternão jersey has managed to sneak around the parked vehicles and make a run for it. Rather than try to get past you into Paredes' humanitarian arms, he's clearly trying to make it out into the street to surrender to the cops above, both arms raised with one of them holding an emptied cartridge.

You don't like it when you don't fully clear out a crime scene, especially if someone makes it out to tell the others. You prefer to let the operation itself send a message. Pental's closest to the garage door, so you decide to let him send it.

"Matteo! Take care of him!" you order, while still staring Paredes down.  
  
Despite a sudden "No!" of objection from Paredes, Matteo nods, turns and leans on the hood of a parked sports sedan, takes a deep breath and fires a short burst, catching the gangster in the left thigh just as he hits sunlight and making him faceplant right out onto the sidewalk.

"Are you fucking through yet!?" Paredes huffs, rubbing his forehead. If he weren't so used to what you do, he'd probably be in histrionics.

"Yeah, we're done," you reply, holstering your weapon.

"Better tell that to your man then," Paredes gestures behind you, at Matteo making his way up the ramp.

Truth be told, he's doing exactly what you trained him to do when it comes to sending messages to gangsters. He stops short of the door and makes sure to double-tap the bastard to send the aforementioned message. But before he can withdraw from the entryway to return to you, something happens.

That is, you suddenly hear a girl screaming outside. You know that voice from earlier. And it's a scream that's about as angry as it is out of fright.

You didn't want to deal with the DA, but you did. As you turn around to lead your squad outside, you realize you now have to deal with the source of this outrage.

* * *

**== > Kaviro: Deal with it.  
**

You are now Feferi Peixes and if you did at one point seriously think that you had enough of gratuitous human rights violations for one day, let alone a week off that's supposed to be for vacation, you could not be more wrong. Especially now that you've witnessed another one in broad daylight in the middle of the city.  
  
Now that things have calmed down upstairs, the police and what remains of the security detail are evacuating the guests out through the front lobby. Meenah made sure that the two of you were the first to leave because she loves wielding her leverage like that, and because she knows the press are the most heavily concentrated out there so she can continue to brag.

She probably did not expect the two of you to walk out only to hear the gunshots as soon as you stepped out into the late afternoon heat, ostensibly toward an awaiting police escort. The street corner where the building stands had been cleared, allowing you a clear path over to the source of the noise.

As soon as you rounded the corner in your business heels, you caught a troll with T-jointed horns that appear to look like skateboard wheels or ball-peen hammers stepping out of the garage to confirm his kill with a couple of extra rounds.

"What have you done!?" you shout, getting his attention. He puts his gun up for a brief second before lowering it. His companions quickly emerge from the garage to back him up, also wearing kevlar and combat boots under their business shirts and pants.  
  
One of them approaches you with an outstretched hand. A troll with large, paddle-like horns.  
  
"Ma'am, please, stay back-" he begins, before you continue your outburst.  
  
"No! You can't get away with --EX--ECUTING them like this!" you scream.  
   
The troll you were just conversing with upstairs approaches you too. "Miss Peixes?"  
  
"You did NOT HAV--E TO CULL THEM, Mister Secretary!" If there was a time for you to really get AGGR--ESIV--E about something, as in New York City Hall aggressive, well, this would be it. You're leaning into your words, arms held to your side in order to properly get IN HIS FAC--E.  
  
"Miss Peixes, you need to calm down," he continues, looking sternly if not a little gloomily at you.  
   
"You can't get away with culling people that want to surfender in front  of --EV--ERYON--E!" you continue, pointing out at the crowd beyond the perimeter.

"Oh my fuckin' Gog!" Meenah is almost immediately restraining you from behind with a shoulder lock, along with at least one officer. "Sorry, Mister Secretary, my fishter can get really...gogdammit, can you shooshpap her or somefin!?"

"I warned you not to drop the goddamn hammer on them," a PMERJ detective scolds Kaviro like a schoolteacher as he ascends from the parking ramp.

"And I'm warning you now not to talk to my men like this," Kaviro snaps back, before composing himself. "The situation is stable. We're done here. Let's go."

With that, he gestures for his men to lower their weapons. They turn away slowly and walk toward an SUV parked nearby.

"G--ET BACK H--ER--E!" you shout as the four turn away, Meenah doing a surprisingly good job of restraining you as the cops start to help. "You can't get awave with culling these people in cold blood!"

"Come on, baybe, just calm your rumblespheres," she leans her face through your hair toward your fin-ears. "Just think of all the sopping and partyin' we gonna do, okay?"

You let out one Last Expletive before turning around and wriggling yourself free of Meenah's grasp, trying not to imagine yourself swelling up like an angry puffer from the rage you have to keep inside.

"What about the guests?" Matteo suddenly asks routinely, still in your earshot.

"What about them?" Kaviro scowls to his group, throwing a hand in the air. "The hostages are saved. Let's get the fuck out of here and leave the good Investigator to the debriefing."

"Okay," Pental adds, switching the safety back on his MP5 and getting on his earpiece. "Team 1 to dispatch, situation has stabilized. We don't need Big Skull out here..."

You storm away in the opposite direction toward the police cruisers and the debriefing team, taking deep breaths like a fish reintroduced to the water. Meenah stays by your side while you are close, before turning around and inquiring in moirail-esque terms if Sfyrna is okay. The ambulances and paramedics are allowed in, and the news cameras at the perimeter track them as they approach the garage to hopefully pick up any survivors.

Come to think about it though (and granted you still have not settled from your enraged state of mind), those cameras could be useful for making a statement of your own.

* * *

**== > Feferi: Make a statement.**

**3 stories above Vidigal, Rio de Janeiro**  
  **1 hour later**

You are now Gecko again, and you kinda just made your statement quite a while ago. Right now you're trying to relax.

And by relaxing you're trying to take deep breaths staring up into the gold-lined clouds trekking across the summer sky in their futile attempt to catch up with the setting sun as you're sprawled face up on the masonry roof of a three-story attempt at a townhouse in Vidigal, nursing a wound across your left bicep. The increasingly dim sounds of the citizenry below you accented with the low thump of a distant _baile funk_ help you relax as you try to figure out what to do next.

It's not even _that_ bad for a bullet graze. You probably still have one or two bullets inside you that you can't just explain away, although your body has done a fine job of concealing and repairing itself around the old wounds.

The scabs have already fallen off and the scar is already fading thanks to what you can only describe as solar-powered regeneration. You're flicking each of the other bullets from its respective magazine - 9mms from a locally-licensed version of a Chilean SAF sub-machine gun - into a little satchel by your side for disposal later. You'd just toss them altogether with the magazines and combat knives, but there's a sort of stim toy feeling from just working each one out. Like you're slowly paring away your stress instead of just dumping it all off to fester.

The asshole that fired that particular shell is unconscious in an alley about a hundred meters away from where you are right now along with a couple of his comrades and all their now-empty guns (including the bullets they would have in the chamber) strewn about.

You sit up, and catch the sun tracing a white hot outline around the skyscrapers in the South Zone that it sinks behind.

It's still a graze and it still stings like one motherfucking _pez de chinelo_.

It's just three men down there, out of possibly hundreds or even thousands of ex- and off-duty cops, military, special forces and other uniform-loving whackjobs "patrolling" communities all across the city. You and whomever might take up a short-lived career against their institution, _the_ institution, and all their armies along with whoever might have the temporary guts to try to take them on until they get discouraged and/or violently murdered.

And that's just in the _Municipio do Rio de Janeiro._ That's not counting the  _Estado_ altogether, or São Paulo, or Bahia...

You realize you're getting way too far ahead of yourself the moment your thumb goes for the next bullet in the magazine only to find emptiness. But the thought of quitting while you're ahead or behind has become so regular that you don't even feel it when you think about it.

Two magazines later and the stim toy feel has worn off. You chuck the remaining magazines in the satchel and get up, trying not to make too much noise on the roof so as not to disturb the people living below. You set a mental course back to one of your "changing spots" and then back to your place because it's time to check in for the night so you don't show up for work tomorrow looking like a ghast.

That would _not_ be a good feeling. Feeling like a ghast, that is. Is it even possible to turn into one?

As you tie the satchel closed and then to your shorts - knockoff national team jersey shorts, you don't even know who uses that number anymore - and begin your climb down, you hear an old CRT TV playing through a window in the second floor.

You crawl around the side of the window to make sure your dreads don't accidentally drape into the residents' view of the next wall over. You then peek up, to see what the television ghasts are watching.

_"...military police and a special contingent of BOPE were able to move in and rescue the guests, including Fabricas Peixes CEO Tiburo Sfyrna as well as namesake socialites Meenah and Feferi Peixes. However, Feferi, a social activist residing in New York, had quite a few words to say about the handling of the situation..._

It legitimately surprises you that the girl you were only working with this morning has already gotten into that much trouble, although given the circumstances you'd hardly wish her death for anything other than her coincidential biological link to arguably the Southern Hemisphere's most exorbitant and arrogant socialites.

You cringe a little at how she speaks ever so passionately of the rampant violation of human rights that went on during the operation, in fluent Brazilian Portuguese. That doesn't make them any less rampant, of course, nor does it discount her experience. But as much as Rio's social stratification and the problems that spawn like the brooding pits share many common themes with that of American cities, she doesn't seem to understand that what might work up there can't simply be applied down here as much as local activists and journalists do. In fact that's probably how many of Brazil's problems got so deeply rooted.

But you're letting yourself drift off again. Someone comes in from the townhouse's kitchen, and you drop off to the ground between the two alleyways. You keep low, your bandana doing nothing to dissipate the odors of a nearby garbage pile as you prowl toward a place to get your bearings.

You take note of a radio also playing the evening news before you climb up a chain-locked door and off to your sojourn home.

 _"Later in the show, City Sleuth goes in-depth on an increasing number of_ _disappearances in Vidigal, Nova Beforra and other impoverished communities..."_

**== > FILE END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I got to planning out the rest of the story, and I may or may not be looking for someone to beta the outline so there's more superhero-supervillain action than cheap crossover retelling. I might also need a lot more help with fish puns. :(


	7. In This Fish-Eat-Fish World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Silvis for beta reading and proofreading, this chapter wouldn't have been possible without them.

**== > Feferi: Try to relax. Again.**

**Olympia Restaurant, Lagoa  
8:27 pm**

 

"Feferi! I trust the ride went smoothly?"

You are currently Feferi Peixes and despite the setting, it's good to finally get some family bonding time with your spawn sibling and her alleged moirail. Tiburo Sfyrna personally greets you and helps you out of the inconspicuous Audi sedan that transported you here from Torre Tubarão. He's wearing a new and very smart casual polo with khakis and leather shoes, perfect for some fine dining. You have a long-sleeved yet loose white dress shirt and another long but more muted dark fuschia business skirt, formal but a little more modest to fit the setting.

"It did! Your driver reely knows the shortcuts!" you reply, adjusting your purse strap around your shoulder.

"That's what we pay him for," Tiburo chuckles as the Audi drives off. "Come on, Meenah's already here."

The small, brick-exterior Michelin-starred restaurant is a stone's throw away from the neighborhood's namesake Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon. Tucked in between a few upscale apartment buildings overlooking the lagoon, it's quaint enough for members of society's less conspicuous upper coral reef to enjoy some quiet time, talk business and/or gossip. The interior is an eclectic mixture of minimalist wall features and hanging lighting fixtures in red, orange and beige, implying a more artistic and sophisticated approach to the food they serve.

Meenah's obviously never in the mood for this sort of thing as she lounges at the corner table with the best view, violently skirting the smart-casual dress code with some street-chic fuschia getup, and she's already broken out the champagne. As in “champagne-from-Champagne” champagne. She didn’t pop the cork and spray the place down, though, because Tiburo managed to convince her that they'd get kicked out of here for being too rowdy, speaking from experience and the multiple angry 1-star reviews she's posted in response to getting kicked out.

"Now this is what I'm talkin' ‘boat. Family time, just three little pearls in a nice comfy oyster for the evenin'," Meenah begins, taking a slightly less-than-refined sip of the bubbly from a crystal champagne flute.

"Where'ef you been? You've been gone all day!" you exclaim as you sling your purse around the chair and take a seat.

Meenah leans forward on the table, clutching her head in both hands. "Sorry, sis, it's just I had to make sure people weren't goin' round finkin' I was some kinda scared little sardine after yesterday."

Gog, you hate that trope. You know that being a socialite in Brazil is painting a target on your back regardless of flamboyancy. Still, you try to stay above it by trying to do good by those born without your privileges while Meenah lights her own proverbial target up in bright neon.

"I think _everyone_ got that shellfie you posted with the two of us, though!" you giggle.

"Nah clam, I mean..." she leans back and gestures to rephrase herself, "I gotta swim my talk, a picture ain't worth a thousand reais if you ain't there to earn that cash money."

"Ah, busy promoting yourshellf?" you reply with a raised eyebrow. It _would_ be like her to try to pin her "brand" on anything she deems worthy to be graced by her...influences.

"Sorta, yeah," she smirks.

**== > Meenah: Claim that cash money.**

* * *

  **Nova Beforra Favela  
Earlier That Day**

You are now Bicuda and even as your empire spreads its tentacles across the land, you still need to actually go out and collect some taxes yourself every now and then just to remind everyone who's in charge.

This is why you're currently lounging on the old-but-not-too-shabby sofa of a third story apartment in the middle of Nova Beforra, closely analyzing your 2x3dent to see if it received any cosmetic damage over and above the usual blood and viscera that you're proud to decorate it with while you're in glorious battle for the (read _your_ ) empire. Sure, they might not see the scratches when they're being impaled with it, but even when you're out collecting taxes you have appearances to keep up. With your back to the window and a gloriously typical Rio de Janeiro blue sky out, you can pay more attention to the details until you hear a key turning the lock.

A smooth Chinese-branded LCD TV blares the vibes of MTV Brasil as you wait for your guest. The room's walls are painted a faded forest green, the floor tiles plain terra cotta. There will be light in the trenches before you ever call this taint on your penthouse view a home, but as someone currently, legitimately and unironically does call this their home, you believe you have the right to charge them for your inconvenience.

"That's a nice television you got there," you say slyly to the occupant as he walks in with his daughter and suddenly stops frozen in his tracks when he sees you in your now-infamous fishbone-logo tee, cargo-camo pants, combat boots and facemask. It's easy to disguise your otherwise distinctive horn shape for its simplicity, with serrated horn guards with small fabric squares that make them look like the battle banners of old.

This particular tenant is an otherwise decent, hardworking human individual in his 30s in a simple button-up shirt and jeans, the first signs of a receding hairline not doing anything to dampen his spirits. He's the proprietor of a small mobile phone shop close to the main roads that recently moved into higher-end smartphones, sourced from legitimate distributors. His daughter is doing quite well in primary school too.

It's a nice little sandcastle of prosperity that he knows can be knocked down by anybody as long as the _milicia_ is protecting him.

Or rather, it's a nice little sandcastle you can painfully wash away with a nice low tide if he doesn't pay his motherglubbing rent.

And you wouldn't be here if he was paying it.

"Please, Bicuda. We already paid our dues yesterday," he begs as he gestures his daughter to run into their bedroom. She does so and locks the door behind her.

"Nah, y'all paid your _cable_ dues yesterday. So you ain't gotta worry about your nice new TV set," you reply, before standing up. You deliberately use your 2x3dent to help you up, punching dents into the tiled floor. You can see the poor guy start to tremble as he realizes what you're talking about. "Although I'm told your store's been looking really nice."

"Our sales are picking up," he starts to plead as his eyes go wide., "We'll give the money by Saturday!"

"We wanted the store rent _yesterday_ , motherglubber," you snarl as you shift your 2x3dent's stance to point directly at his jugular.

He backs against the wall, sweating bullets. "Please, Bicuda! I just need 24 hours and I'll get you your fees!"

"You've been living beyond your means for the _last_ 24 hours, you fuckin' bottom feeder," you growl as you hold the tips of your 2x3dent inches from his throat with the intention to go all in. “I think we might have to have your daughter make up the difference.”

He's sobbing already. That tends to happen quickly with clients that don't put up a fight. It also means he's going to comply, which he confirms by saying, "Okay...just let me get to my safe..." in staggered, erratic breaths.

You gesture with your trident, and he glances towards a box on the second rack from the bottom of a bookshelf near the TV. Your intuition doesn't need to serve you to give you the hint that he keeps his extra cash there. You withdraw your 2x3dent only to give him a broadside across his head with the prongs, sending him to the ground in the general direction of his safe.

"Open it. If there ain't at least two grand in there, you're gonna be payin' three to fix up your place."

He snivels a little as he crawls over to the safe like the ground-sucker he is, turns the knob to the right combination and pulls the door open. Soon as that happens, you push him out of the way with a boot to his shoulder and dig in, taking two of the thickest envelopes you find inside.

You keep one hand on your 2x3dent just in case, using the other to pry into the envelopes so you can take a brief visual count of all that colorful paper. It ain't exactly precious metal, but as long as a _real_ is worth something to someone, it's always something worth taking. There's enough for two payments here.

Or in your words, "You're lucky this'll cover your late fees. Next month's payment better be on time, you _filet da puta_." You pocket the envelopes in a belt-mounted satchel, lift your 2x3dent across your shoulders, and walk toward the apartment's front door, although you do give a few parting comments before you kick it open. "’Though I might be inclined to wave a percentage if you stock the MP6 front and center."

You can hear his sobbing intensifying as you make your way down the hall, your stride increasing to a run before you catapult your way smoothly out a conveniently open window onto a nearby rooftop to head toward your next payment. _Fucking gaperbloods and humans don't get the beauty of the MP6_ , you think to yourself.

Musings of slightly antiquated technological aesthetics aside, you still have a few extra collections to get back to before you drop off the majority of the cash. At least they let you keep a larger portion of what you take than the other peons in their school. Cash you can say you earned over and above your technically limitless expense accounts, that you can have laundered to get you things _you_ want.

Old Alternia certainly wasn't built in a day. You realized early on that building New Alternia won't be that much different, but at least it's _your_ New Alternia.

**== >Bicuda: Go to your next objective.**

* * *

**Olympia Restaurant, Lagoa  
** **8:47pm**

You are now Feferi Peixes and your current objective is to enjoy your dinner.

"...he got keelhauled so hard that they'll have to pry him outta Davy Jones' Locker with a torpedo," Meenah concludes her story of a little face-to-face time with a celebrity that called her out for some perceived cowardice yesterday. "Just in time for my _darlin’_ Tibby here to make resurfations for the three'a us." She turns to smile at Tiburo, the kind of smile that somehow infers more than just a benefactor/servant relationship.

"Speaking of busy schedules, Feferi," Tiburo begins politely, poking at his dish with a fork, "I'm sorry that things have been a little _...chaotic_ since you got here."

You chuckle and wave it off. "Oh, it's fin. Honestly, I'm just glad to be away from having to deal with so much...bureaucracy." You enunciate the last word like you just tasted a bad morsel, which thankfully has not happened with your current platter so far.

"I read about what you were doing in New York after the Incident there," Tiburo continues. The portions at this gourmet restaurant are typically quite small. "It must have been very stressful for you."

"It was," you nod as the waiter places a small platter of a seafood delicacy on the table. "All those people displaced. It's sad that it has to take a major disaster for people to come together. And even then, people high up from elsewhere use it as the perfect opportunity to take advantage."

Stressful was an understatement. You barely survived on naps in those dark days after you returned to shore, with both you and Nymph doing double time trying to keep what was left of Lower Manhattan, Brooklyn and Staten Island from falling apart. _Stressful_ could not describe how you felt trying to be an imperial shield for people that did not want anybody representing the elite to help them.

 _Stressful_ could not cover the tenuous alliance you made with the Felt’s own Black Queen to keep the Bronx safe for survivors. At least she seemed to honor that agreement...for the time being.

There'll be plenty to do when you get back up there, but for now, this pufferfish needs to let out its bloat.

"Well, we'll try to make sure you can rest a bit more during your stay down here," he says reassuringly.

"To be honest, I think the kidnap attempt was the first thing to make my visit interesting!" you force out a joke.

You realize as soon as the last few words leave your mouth that you might have made yourself guilty of trivializing the same death you encountered firsthand.

"It would be _too_ interesting if we lost either of you last night," Tiburo replies, trying to be sensible about it and mostly succeeding. "What matters most is that we're all alive now, and we’re here and can enjoy our time together."

That's probably why Tiburo sent a driver that knew the shortcuts, though. Just in case someone else knew where you were headed.

You sigh as you cast a forlorn look down upon the dish in front of you. You both lived through it, but you still worry about the ones who probably didn't. It's a force of habit more than anything, even as the notion that you can't save everyone was one of the first things you learned as a superhero.

"It's just-" you begin.“You saw the bodies too.”

"They tried to kidnap and kill us," he adds in an almost fatherly tone before taking a sip of wine he ordered, "They had to respond."

"They just didn't have to cull them in broad daylight," you reply solemnly. "I know they had to respond, but..."

Part of the reason the drive here seemed to go as quickly was because you were checking the news on your own smartphone, trying to see what happened to that one poor soul that you last saw on the balcony with bullet wounds. You had to dig around to find any news, buried as it was under the repeatedly-posted pictures of Meenah's selfie, your impromptu rant against the security establishment, as well as a possible appearance of the Barracuda doing actual hero things.

You do not like to think about the fact that the Barracuda actually saved you, nor the reasons for her portrayal as a hero in some legitimate circles.

All you know is that he and a couple others survived, but in critical condition. It’s that depressing vagueness of information you will probably eventually forget as you move onto the next crisis situation.

"Look, if you need a break from the city, I can arrange to have the cruiser shuttle you anywhere in the country," he says, making a small gesture with his free left arm to indicate Brazil's span. "We can even get you to Macchu Picchu or Guiana for the rocket launch."

You weren’t surprised that Meenah didn’t have the cruiser waiting for you across the tarmac you touched down at Galeão. But it does still surprise you that for someone still obsessed with applying the imperial standard colors to everything, she chose to have it painted a violently bright red.

"I appreefiate the offer, Mr. Sfyrna," you reply with a soft smile. "I'll let you know if that opportunity afryses!"

"Speaking of opportunity," Meenah interjects, "Why y’all not take the opportunity to holla back when I holla atcha?"

"I tried when I noticed you left, but since you got busy I decided to get busy myself," you reply with a slightly bashful blush.

"Busy with what, if I might ask?" Tiburo asks.

"Building my _own_ rep, as you call it," you reply with a smile. "Although I have to say it's somefin I might be working on for the next few days."

Meenah leans forward, elbows on the table and a snide smile from cheek to cheek. "Y'all went to one of those gaperblood centers, didn't you. Don't act like I don't know what you get up to errytime you come down here."

From anyone else, you probably would have delivered a swift verbal rebuttal to this kind of slur against trolls of blood types 1 through 4. This is Meenah Peixes, however, and you've come to expect (and, Gog forbid, _tolerate_ ) an otherwise blinding level of hemocondescension from her ignorance chutes. You've also developed the habit of reminding yourself to lead by example. With that in mind, you frown just enough for her to notice.

"If I'm gonna cull some time, I might as well keep making a difference, right?"

**== > Feferi: Make a difference.**

* * *

  **Cerebro Fogo Favela  
Also Earlier That Day**

You are now Ptycho Cateus and you were playing futbol with the other kids in the little court by the outreach center when Feferi Peixes walked right up to the gravel lot you call a field and grabbed the attention of pretty much everyone just by standing there. She seems to revel in that attention by waving back at them with an adorably cringe-inducing smile on her face.

You have to admit it takes serious bulge for her to survive an attempted gangland kidnapping in the heart of the city and then respond to it by showing up in the middle of gangland the very next day.

"Feferi! Thank God you're alive!" João exclaims as he runs up from the far corner of the court to hug her with Elizabeta not far behind. The sudden attention draws quite a few of the kids into a very loose arc around her.

Or rather it would take serious bulge if this wasn't one of the more milicia-"sanitized" areas of the city now. And you use the quote hopbeasts very, very liberally in this instance. They probably had their patrols shadow her at every corner just in case. You're the last one to make your way up to them, staying at least a few meters behind the group.

"Thanks, guys!" she replies, soft yet still bubbly, like a carbonated drink about to go flat. But she doesn't, because then she notices you clear across the small group of kids. "Ptycho! There you are!"

You grumble to yourself under your breath and try to back away, but the crowd of kids opens a path for her straight to you and she sweeps you up in another hug, even more intense than the one she gave you when she arrived.

You notice João and Elizabeta mostly concealing giggles and chuckles as she puts you back down.

“Why are you guysss laughing?” you ask, before Feferi and Elizabeta resume the futbol game with the kids.

“You know what it means, don’t you?” João asks.

“No, and I don’t want to.” But you’re going to find out anyway, as João leans in toward you, exaggerating a gesture like he’s passing on a secret.

“You’ve been marked for culling,” João mutters, putting on a children’s scary story tone.

“Culling?” you ask as you get up and stretch your arms, unable to sound scared. You swear you can feel a little strain indicating possible microfractures.

“That’s what she calls it, apparently.” João resumes his normal tone of voice. “If there’s a kid here that’s acting extra bad or is extra needy, she singles them out for a _lot_ of extra attention. It’s probably how she pronounces cuddling or coddling.”

You frown very visibly. “Do I look resssently molted to you?!”

“Don’t worry about it, man,” he replies, patting your shoulder. “It’ll only last as long as she’s down here. Just play along and maybe you’ll brighten up a bit too.”

You slump a little as you watch them, crossing your arms in front of your ribcage to make sure she didn’t cave it in around the organs inside your chest cavity. She could have squeezed the life right out through each of your dreads

“Fffuck it. It’s only fffor a fffew daysss,.” you say amidst a heavy exhale, before getting up and walking over to join the game.

**== > Ptycho: Play along.**

* * *

**Olympia Restaurant, Lagoa** **  
****9:20pm  
**

You are Meenah Peixes and you are playing along listening to Feferi going on and on about her little adventure today at that goddamn gaperblood center. Your eyes almost glaze over as you watch _her_ eyes almost glaze over talking about which wriggler drew this, how so-and-so could be a real futbol star if he tried, et fucking cetera.

Even Tiburo respectfully listens and talks about them too, like a lusus helping their charge with homework. Shit, you wish Glubby gave you that much attention when she wasn’t hovering under the Great Pacific Corruption Patch.

It almost makes you want to have the Michelin-starred dessert coming out the wrong end.

“Meenah!” The mention of your name suddenly re-sharpens your vision. “We should totally go visit them sometime!”

You got the general gist of everything she said before, and you’ve decided to promptly ignore it. “Guuuurl, we need’a find you a buoyfrond,” you say with a sneer as you lean back in your seat. “Try’na become fronds with those people lowered your sandards.”

And then she edges on putting on that youngling woofbeast face.

“Now now, Meenah,” Tiburo replies, smooth as a shark in calm waters. “It’s always important to get to know people from every social sphere.”

You ‘tch’ in disdain before signalling a nearby waiter to deliver the check, though not because you don’t do it. On the contrary, you’ve spent more time with those _favelados_ in a month than Feferi has her whole life. But as an empress-to-be, you’ve got to know who your fronds are while swimming over and above your competitors for oceanic apex predator.

“I know plenty’nuff to surfive in this fish-eat-fish world, Tibby,” you add, before your expression suddenly warms up toward Feferi. “And speakin’ a knowledge, you an’ I defo need’a have some _reel_ fishterly time together tomorrow.” You point at her, emphasizing the ‘you and i’ part with a mischievous smile.

“Oh, okay!” she replies, obviously feigning disappointment in her agreement as she starts working at her slightly-melted dessert in polite, small bites. “It isn’t too much to hope we won’t get attacked again, I suppose.”

“Pffff. Don’t worry ‘bout it,” you laugh loud enough that the manager throws you a worried glance from across the dining area. “Only fins gettin’ culled when we out doin’ our thang are designer shellves, bayby!”

**== > Feferi and Meenah: Do your thang.**

* * *

  **BOPE Headquarters, Laranjeiras** **  
** **Hours earlier, but not too many...**

 You are now Kaviro Morrah and you absolutely cannot bring yourself to do your thang. This is where your career in special operations started after boot camp, and today it’s where someone else’s career ends.

You’re standing by the entrance of the mostly-empty gear room, in your business shirt, tie and dress pants, your poker face perfectly concealing the soul-devouring fear that you’ve become the bureaucrat you hated as you listen in on the argument going on inside.

_“All these operations, all the gangs we took down, counts for fucking nothing to them!”_

_“Look, they’ll find something else to move on to. You’ll be reinstated in no time.”_

The VIPs were grateful for you and your squad showing that you didn’t need your black armor to take down scumbags. There was more social media respect for you than hatred, for once. You were all quietly given commendations for your heroism.

That alone was probably what kept them from having Matteo straight-up kicked off the force.

“They shouldn’t have fucking demoted me in the first place, goddammit.”

Sgt. Matteo Gracio was one of your finest recruits. He and Vicente Braga were partners since they shared a dorm at the academy. When Braga got left for dead during the Olympic Raid, you personally allowed Gracio to pull the trigger on the gang boss that ordered that ambush. And then Gracio even forgave Braga’s debt. You couldn’t get a stronger partnership than that in a Hollywood action movie.

_“You’re letting her get to you!”_

But it wasn’t nearly strong enough to withstand that all-consuming machine that is public relations.

_“We put our necks on the line only to get thrown under the goddamn bus by some spoiled bitch that would’ve taken a bullet to the fucking head.”_

Once a 30-second snippet of some bleeding-pusher corporate heiress ranting with blood on her suit makes it onto the internet, you can never take it down. Something had to be done to make sure their constituencies didn’t get any supposedly “revolutionary” ideas from it.

_“So? It’s not the first time someone’s spoken out like that!”_

Someone had to be fed to the proverbial horrorterror, and Matteo happened to be caught on camera actually sending one of the hostage-takers to the horrorterrors.

_“So she fucking thinks she knows more about where I came from than I fucking do.”_

You were given a “recommendation” to have Gracio assigned back to the Policia Militar where he started, and you definitely use the quote hopbeasts with full sarcasm because it was an order.

You can hear the sound of bags being picked up, and footsteps approaching.

_“Look, let me talk to the Captain. He can do something.”_

_“But he didn't.”_

You only look into Gracio’s glaring eyes for a split second as he passes you, carrying out his remaining personals in a backpack. He could have spit at you, swore at you, called you as good as a traitor for not sticking up to him.

He didn’t have to.

When Vicente walks out of the locker room, his eyes also meet yours for a split second. His gaze is that of shock and depression. _Why didn’t_ you _do anything?_

You stand there for a few more minutes in contemplation, rubbing your forehead.

There are a lot of things you can’t control directly. The weather, enemy strategy, the reflexes and choices that the men you commanded have to make in a split second. But all of these you can manage and adapt to in order to keep the machine of justice moving ever forward in its eternal battle against injustice. When you were promoted to the halls of power, you could exert even more control of the machine.

But now, you’re starting to realize how much of that power you have _relative_ to the top woofbeasts and fattened meowbeasts you’ve thrown your results out to.

You hadn’t really gotten more powerful. They simply managed to get you out of the way.

_“I’m gonna find a way to get you back here, man.”_

_“Fuck you. I’ll find my own way back.”_

Braga tails him out into the dry afternoon sun. There haven’t been any drills or operations scheduled for today so there’s barely any other activity out here, allowing you to simmer in the relative silence.

Gracio gets into a taxi, and tomorrow morning report to some precinct in the West Zone presumably close to the action. Braga then gives you one last frustratedly dejected look before heading back into the locker room.

You are Deputy Secretary for Public Safety Kaviro Morrah, and as you trudge out of the locker rooms and out of the building to your car, you find your asking yourself the question you thought you’d never ask:

Since when were you the one in control?

**== > FILE END**


	8. Laundry List of Delirious Biznasty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was hoping to get this out in time for the Olympics but I'm afraid my procrastination made that impossible. :( Once again though, special special thanks to Silvis for continued patronage and editing!

**== > Bicuda: Let's go kick some mufuckin’ wastechute!**

**Favela Cerebro Fogo** **  
** **3:27pm**

You are not exactly Bicuda, but you are a Peixes in her superhero alter ego. You are currently Nymph and you're going to have another go at superheroing near your outreach center. It's particularly humid out this afternoon, and you're wearing only the minimum black-and-fuschia wetsuit with horn guards and “combat heels” to minimize your dehydration.

Standing in water might also help with dehydration too. That is if it's clean water, which absolutely does not describe the contents of the 10-meter-long pool in front of you.

You're also not sure if this sludgepit used to be a swimming pool in a past life, but you're going to find out.

There's already a few bystanders distracted from their daily errands and likely wondering what this superperson that somehow resembles the Barracuda is doing by this dubious body of water. You suspect that _they_ suspect you're gonna try to set it on fire like some villains tend to do with chemical spills, which is _COMPL--ET--ELY NOT SOM--EFIN YOU DO AT ALL._ 38(

You close your eyes and begin concentrating, harnessing the same power you used to keep that poor fellow from dying out on that sun-bleached balcony not too long ago. You can sense it pulsing outward from your center of mass as you prepare to exude it into a larger area than a bullet wound.

You step into the muck, your arms just slightly raised from your sides (a decision that's more form than function) and divert the same inner energy outward. The water on this side goes up to your thighs and soaks about the first ten centimeters of your hair, the shape of the pool's perimeter indicating this section was divided away for the children.

Almost at once, concentric off-white and green rings start pulsing outward the length of the pool before gently ricocheting back toward you. Each ripple slowly skims and disintegrates the accumulated filth and corruption into smoky wisps.

About a minute later, the ripples of light fade as they finish their job of purification. You can see straight through to the old tiling at the bottom of this pool, in all its off-color luster. It’s not swimming pool blue, but anyone that wanted to draw a bucket of it can drink from it without any complications to their health.

You're pretty sure you could do that to the entire mouth of the Amazon, in some other sort of timeline where you’re near a much larger body of water. But sometimes heroism doesn’t need to be conspicuously attributed to you. Most of Rio still doesn’t know how the Olympic rowing events suddenly became a lot more livable the day before the torch got lit.

You turn and face the assembled group as you step out and toward the crowd. Your feet and the heels they're in are wet but as clean as the water they came out of. Several of the group are recording the proceedings with their mobile phone cameras. They also recoil a little as if they've offended you.

"Don't worry! I'm not here to hurt you!" you announce. "I'm-"

"Bicuda?" one of them asks as your tongue meets the roof of your mouth to begin the pronunciation of the 'N' in Nymph.

The moment he mentions her name though, you close your mouth and your eyes, look down a little and smile confidently without the smugness of the personality they think you have. This wouldn't be the first time they've mistaken you for the resident supervillain, and you figure you'll play it so it won't be the last.

"Yes. I'm Bicuda."

The crowd seems to take a step back. Then they part and dissipate, allowing an unfortunately familiar mug to step in.

"Bicuda! There you are!" It's a gruff voice that would sound angry if it wasn't so enthusiastic. Mr. Tropical Shirt is back with one of his goons… and a differently colored tropical shirt. "Why didn't you tell us you were gonna use some superpowers?"

"Y- 'chu want?" You stop yourself from talking in your Nymph voice, quickly putting on a decent impression a street-gang supervillain you step out of the pool, put one hand on your hips.

"Well, we got a problem that could use your… special touch." He points the FAL he's carrying at your 2x3dent, retracted and slung behind your back. "Got bit of a rat problem."

"Fo' rill? What's his damage?" you ask, trying to sound like you _don't_ like dealing with people who have no other recourse against big crime syndicates but to turn _pentito._

"We knocked off a friend of his trying to sell _oxidado_ to some teenagers," the guy explains like selling an illegal narcotic aptly named 'rust' happens every day, which it still technically does down here. "Now he thinks he can go to the cops and tell ‘em we're some kind of an extortion racket."

"That's fuckin' cold," you reply, facepalming and forcing a smirk you've seen your sister wearing so many times. "And you was doin' the city a service!"

"Yeah, no shit," Tropical Shirt asserts bluntly, before handing you a small slip of paper. "His friends need to be taught another lesson, so _you're_ gonna grill 'em good for us."

You raise an eyebrow. "Hol' up. How come _y'all_ just can't harpoon ‘em yo’self?" You must be doing a convincing impression of Bicuda that they act natural toward you, even if though you feel you’re actually just channeling Meenah.

"Because that goddamn Gecko helped him escape today, took out a couple of good men in the process," Tropical Shirt replies, leaning in and muttering so he doesn't describe their humiliation out loud. "He'll see us coming all the way from Belem now, but he's not expecting to get eaten by the Barracuda."

You eye the address, then feign exasperation as if this kind of assignment is below you. "Ugh, fin'. I'm fin’na get my 2x3dent a new coat'a blood paint long as he ain't skipped town."

"We'd know if he already left the neighborhood, but it'd send a stronger statement if _you_ do the honors," Tropical Shirt replies. "Should be a nice easy, as you say, bottomfeeder in a barrel."

You nod and upgrade your smirk to a predatory smile. Not so much for the guy you have to save, but for the guys you're saving him from. You're going to have so much fun coming up with a plan and screwing them over, possibly getting the _real_ Bicuda’s attention in the process.

"A’ight fin’," you reply as you pocket the address in a hip satchel. “Good thing I got plenty’a time befo’ my net recordin’ session.”

"Don't forget to confirm the kill for us, and his friends," Tropical Shirt adds before gesturing to his comrades to follow him. "Should be an easy 250 for you. If you excuse us, we gotta get back on patrol."

"And I gotta get to cullin'," you tell yourself, mentally adding that you mean culling how _you_ mean it, not how the Barracuda does.

You pull out your smartphone and input the address - more accurately, the general vicinity. It's one thing to find the address, you also gotta make sure they're home. And it's another thing entirely to stay in character while you do.

**== > Nymph: What Would Bicuda Do?™**

**Shopping Leblon** **  
** **8:15 pm**

You don't know what Bicuda would do because you're not her… yet. But you are Meenah and you're pretty sure you know what she'd do about taking out a pathetic squeakbeast. You'd scrape that pathetic barnacle off your empire with extreme prejudice, and deny its corpse the honor of a selfie like the one you're taking with your very alive fishter right now.

"Smile and say Peixes!" you say as you pull out your MP6 for the umpteenth time today alone and flip it open to Instagram.

"Peixes!" she replies with a bubbly if not increasingly exasperated grin as the two of you lean in toward each other to get both your faces into the shellphone's front-facing camera.

_Damn,_ you think to yourself as you back at it again with the fuschia-and-gold Vans and another attempt to make sure that both of you stay fixtures on the @RichWrigglersofInstagram. At one of Rio de Janeiro's most upscale shopping centers, you're definitely putting in an effort, taking shellfies with _each_ of your finds and lacing it with hashtags through the gills.

The irony of the Trendsetting Wars isn't lost on you. Apparently the "torn" t-shirt you're wearing was "designed" for a popular (and perhaps equally braggadocios) American rapper's label, but apart from the label there's little to distinguish it from something the absolutely least fortunate wear to avoid excessive sunburn

"Hopy shit, clam. We at 100 likes in 30 seconds an' we ain't even cleared the first trench!" you exclaim, after a refresh flick.

"That's fishter power, light 'em up twice as fast!" she replies enthusiastically.

"More like I gotta put in _three_ times the effort to neutralize your drag," you reply, half jokingly. "Yo' geek shit is draggin' along my pretty coral reef like a fuckin' anchor."

The two bags she's toting over one shoulder contain a selection of read-along storybooks for the kids at that outreach center she's been going to. There's also a receipt sticking out of it for an extra delivery order to other centers.

Speaking of which…

"Hey, what's not popular aboat helping kids to enjoy reading?" she asks.

Apart from those kids ending up getting shoved into the cement floors by the actually popular kids that will actually go onto make something of themselves later in life e.g. as close as someone could get to you without being a fuschia-blood?

"'Cause I've _never_ sea-n you this dedicrayted to a sea-ngle gaperblood center befo'," you reply cheekily. "Your eyes startin'a glaze over like you just got hooked, line an' sinker."

"Whale, yeah." She looks away bashfully. "I'll admit, there's someone that needs a _lot_ ta culling down there."

Feferi does like to get attached to the reely, _reel_ y needy little landdwellers down there. That usually leads to her taking one or two of them on a cruiser flight around Sugarloaf Mountain while you look on in disgust from the passenger seat, figuring out how much it would cost to get the cockpit professionally sterilized. But she looks like she's found someone more of her age than just some recently-pupated gaperblood, which you deduce has to be one of the people she's working with.

"C'mon gurl," you reply sneakily. "Y'all know you can tell me."

You know a lot of celebrities and many of your more full-time colleagues at the University love to volunteer down there. For a moment, you're hopeful that she's finally found someone that can be properly welcomed into the Imperial Household.

"Well, he's not a rich seadweller, if that's what you're asking," she replies, ever so selflessly smug.

You should probably have expected to be disappointed by now.

"GURL." You cut her off again, your hands grabbing her wrists as swift as a chef's knife on freshly caught tuna as you put a begging kind of disappointment on your face. "We have _gots_ to find you someone nice!"

"Meenah, how many times do I have to tell you? Money doesn't buy character!"

"All I'm try'na say is that ever since you broke up with that Atlantis buoy or whoever he was-"

"Shell no!" she yelps, recoiling from you. "That's what I mean! He was always bitter about somefin' and no matter how pale I tried to make it, he never appreefiated it!"

"A’ight, a’ight, I feel you, money can't exactly _compensate_ for inadequacy," you sigh, one hand on your hip as you hold your latest shopping bags behind you. "But as yo’ co-Empress I am appointin' myself as the Imperial personal quadrant evaluator while you down here, okay?"

You almost feel sorry for her as she pouts and crosses her arms.

“Gurl, it’s gonna be a’ight,” you say, trying your damnedest to sound sympathetic as you pat her shoulder with your free arm. “Look, I’ma try to get a little time off from this biznasty I been workin’ on, then I’ma help you take care’a yours.”

“Thanks,” she replies bashfully, in a semi-tacit refusal. But you’ll cray along.

“No prob, that’s what fishters are for, right?”

**== > Meenah: Work on yo' biznasty.**

* * *

 

**Favela Cerebro Fogo** **  
** **4:01 pm**

You are not Bicuda or Meenah but you are taking care of some kind of delirious biznasty. You are now Nymph and you are trying to stay in-character as you interrogate a suddenly-very-panicked ochre-blooded femtroll that you've pinned to the wall of an alley near the address the milicia gave you.

"Ay, that wastechute Leandro still at home?"

"Y-yes, Bicuda! You're not gonna kill him, are you?!"

You look around to see if there are any _milicia_ goons nearby, then lean in.

"Ssh, don't worry. I'ma figure something else out," you whisper, before pulling your reverse-edge 2x3dent out of the wall and giving her a more-gentle-than-it-appears shove out of the corner. "Now be gone fo' I change my mind!"

You are now Nymph again and as you watch that girl nod and run off, you realize you have the opportunity to accomplish both goals in rather rapid succession. A quick reminder of the objectives: First, locate the resident/s at home. Second, deal with the occupant/s in a way that avoids certain death at the hands of the milicia.

The address is a one-story aqua-blue dwelling at the top of a two-story climb, the floor itself completely separate from the one below.

You give a couple polite knocks on the door itself. You can hear something dropping inside, and a high-pitched gasp before the door opens just a little.

You can tell he's the one they're looking for from the look of utter shock that explodes across the 40-something-year-old human's face the moment he sees you.

"Hang on! I'm not here to-"

He proceeds to try slamming the door, and you counter it by pushing it back with the side of your body. You manage to squeeze in, and then close the door with your left foot (narrowly avoiding catching your mega-braid) because you have both hands up in the air.

You have to, as he's drawn a locally-made revolver on you.

"I told the cops it wasn't Preisler that killed my brother! They’ve got no way to tie it back to me!" he exclaims, panicked. Sweat has stained most of his button-down shirt and short pants already. "Please, just leave me alone!"

"I know the milicia's after you, okay? But I'm not Bicuda and I'm _not_ here to krill you!" You immediately bend down a little, unsling your retracted 2x3dent and lay it on the ground like you're going to surrender.

"How the fuck do I know you won't?"

"Do you think the real Bicuda would have knocked?" you answer sternly. "And if it helps, I don't believe a single word about what they told me about you or your brother!"

"We've tried to get him off the stuff… Lord knows we've tried." He's almost crying at this point and you can't blame him. The poorest users try to turn into very-small-time dealers just to make ends meet. "They killed him in the street like a dog!"

"Yeah, they know you went to the police too.”

“The hell was I going to do!? Look, just let us leave and we’ll never show our faces here again!”

"Sorry to disappoint you then, because that’s what I’m gonna help you do,” you reply. “Wait… we?”

“My wife…she's in the bedroom helping me pack,” Leandro mutters. “So if you’re not Bicuda, then who the hell are you?!”

"Someone those bottomfeeders _think_ is Bicuda," you reply craftily. "And I intend to keep it that way for the time being."

The man walks up to you, passing you to pick up your 2x3dent. He has a visibly hard time picking it up, but he's able to support it on one shoulder with his left hand while holding the gun out with the right.

"Okay, _not-Bicuda_. Are Preisler's men outside?"

You figure Preisler for the Guy In The Tropical Shirt. "They're a distance away. They said you'd see them coming because Gecko saved you."

"Yeah, Gecko saved me from being executed on the street."

**== > Leandro: Elaborate.**

* * *

 

**Elsewhere in Rio de Janeiro** **  
** **Last Night**

Ah, night time. When the shadowy part of the city is once again enveloped in shadows, the flickering street and window lights dazzle like large fireflies in this concrete jungle. _Ha nos comunidades,_ not only can anything happen out of sight of most people, the people involved can make it look like it never happened.

You are now Gecko and you are not most people. You now have to make sure that something doesn't even happen in the first place, because the people involved can't make something look like it never happened when it… gogdammit, you're losing your train of thought and you'd better hop off before it rolls right over the Aqueduct.

You've been keeping an eye on an SUV that's been tailing a small blue compact sedan all night. That particular SUV aroused your interest because you could see two plainclothes men that could easily substitute for cops, and one of them appeared to have a weapon. As for the small sedan, there’s only one guy inside, and even from a distance he looked to be quite concerned with trying to lose his more powerfully-engined tail without having to resort to a car chase it will most certainly lose.

The two vehicles come to a stop beside each other at a red light on an empty four-lane street. There aren't any other vehicles nearby, and only two pedestrians conversing with each other in front of a closed shop. It's the perfect opportunity for the SUV’s occupants to send a message.

But they can't see you in the shadows. Between your hair and switching to the “night” version of your superhero costume - which simply involves replacing your blue shorts and socks with black swimwear and matching ankle compressors respectively - you blend into the shadows quite well for someone without a skin-pigment-changing superpower.

At this high angle, you can just make out the guy in the passenger seat pulling up a rifle in the car's direction, but aiming to shoot through his own easily replaceable door.

That’s your signal to go.

You vault-kick off the second story wall, landing directly on the roof of the sedan. The sound you make as you land immediately gets their attention. Using your momentum, you kick off from the sedan's roof, somersault once, and launch feet first into the SUV's front passenger-side window from an upward angle.

The first good thing about this angle is that the SUV’s glass isn’t reinforced, meaning you don’t need that much force to bust through. You grab onto the roof, though, to lever your body just enough to land your left heel between the passenger’s legs. The sudden higher-pitched yelp of pain is all the confirmation you need before using your grip on the roof to somersault up and onto the top of the vehicle.

You hear the equivalent of “The fuck!?” coming from within the SUV, followed by the screeching of tires. In the middle of your front flip you catch the blue sedan accelerating away in the split-second that your vision allows.

You hear the telltale click of a door handle, which you confirm when you see the driver’s side door opening. Far from being safe in the vehicle itself, the driver isn’t going to risk rendering his injured comrade deaf with a muzzle blast or leaving an incriminating bullet hole on a part of the vehicle he can’t just swap out at the garage.

He comes out with a pistol drawn upward, and the last thing he sees before you pounce downward is your palm about to grab his face. With your right arm partially recoiled, you actually pounce toward his right side, bringing him headfirst to the pavement while you roll into the opposite lane of the street, the goon’s sidearm clattering away and sliding up behind you.

You hear some ruffling and grunting behind you, coming from inside the vehicle. You pivot around and pick up the sidearm to find the passenger goon trying to draw an aim on you with his assault rifle by using the hood of the SUV as support.

“Drop the gun, _filho da puta,”_ you snarl.

“You’re not gonna fuckin’ kill me.” The thug tries to force a laugh as he tries to right his aim. He’s shaky though, which definitely confirms where you got him when you broke into the vehicle only seconds ago.

He’s right though. No matter how scummy he is, you’re not going to kill him. But you do know what would be worse.

You launch yourself forward and onto the ground, narrowly missing a short burst that makes a casualty of a couple of your bundled dreads. The SUV has a high enough ground clearance that you can slither right underneath it.

He stumbles back to try to aim at the ground where you come out, but can’t get a shot off before you perform a flat sweep on his ankles and trip him backwards like his comrade. He doesn’t let go of his gun, but he’s dazed enough that you can get up and pry it from him, before standing over him with the muzzle pointed between his eyes.

“No, I’m not going to kill you,” you mutter just loud enough for him to hear, before you knock him out with the butt of the assault rifle planted between his eyes.

These milicia fucks are as much about measuring themselves against their rifle barrels as any other thug in a futbol jersey or cop uniform. That means there is a fate worse than death - perceived emasculation. You immediately gather up all of their weapons, routinely removing the magazine (and ejecting the one bullet left in the chamber) from each gun. The guns themselves get left in the truck. The ammo and the truck’s keys go down a nearby sewer hole.

As for the bystanders, both of them older gentletrolls, gaping at what just happened, you give them a wave and a quick “Tchau!” before leaping back into the darkness.

That’s one soul you’ve bought a few extra hours for, and hopefully a couple hundred reais that won’t end up in Bicuda’s purse.

==>  **Bicuda: Get denied.**

* * *

**Hours later...**

"And that's what happened. We were packing to skip town until you showed up."

You cannot currently be denied those 250 reales because you are Nymph and you are also trying to deny Bicuda her squeakbeast extermination fee.

Leandro has just finished telling his side of how Gecko prevented his execution. By no means did he indicate that he was safe, though. After all, that’s why they sent you here. He’s in a disarming stance himself, but you keep your hands up with your arms at right angles.

"Whale, I can promise you that I'm not leading you into their net,” you answer him calmly and reassuringly.

"But how are you gonna get us out of here?" he begs.

You look upward in a brief moment of thought. You then realize that the blue sedan you saw on the way in must be theirs.

"Do you still have your car?"

"Yes, why?"

==>  **Nymph: Come up with a plan.**

* * *

**Elsewhere in Cerebro Fogo** **  
** **1 minute earlier**

You are now actually Bicuda and you don’t really need a plan to handle your daily laundry list of delirious biznasty; today you’re just swimming with the flow of finding these assignments as you go along.

One such item on your list is currently impaled chin-to-brainstem on your diamond-tipped 2x3dent in his own supposedly-safe corner of the favela, next to a conveniently open and non-barred window.

“Should’a paid your cut, ya’ fucker,” you growl to him with a feral smile under your mask, right as he loses consciousness for the last time, his turquoise blood trickling down the prongs and ornaments of your preferred specibi, accenting its gold plating.

With a great heave, you drape this poor bastard’s body over the windowsill before shoving it over the edge with the sole of your boot. You smile relieved as you watch his almost-naked corpse tumble and flail against the side of the building before landing with a very pronounced splat into the ditch below.

You don’t even bother to close the door behind you as you walk out of his residence, because your attention is directed toward one of your comrades-in-arms calling your name.

“Bicuda! What are you doing here?” Ya’ boy Nunes is your personal army’s district chief and he is acting like he wasn’t expecting to see you.

“Takin’ care of a fuckin’ suckbeast, that’s what.”

“That wasn’t Leandro, though,” Nunes replies perplexedly.

“Fuckin’ who?”

“Leandro? The rat you just went off to kill?”

Seriously, you have no idea who the fuck Leandro is. You’ve forgotten the names of virtually all of the people you’ve had to put down. Shit, you've probably already forgotten who that wastechute was that you just put down.

“A’ight. Just playin’ with ya’.” You certainly don’t want to put up the appearance that you don’t know something though. “This fucker just happened to be on the way there.”

“All right, Bicuda,” he replies, like a human younger sibling. “Sorry. But we haven’t seen him move, so he’ll still be up in his house on _Travessa Quatro_.”

“Ay, don’t worry ‘bout it. I’ma krill that sucker next,” you add dismissively, sounding like you don’t like to be reminded of your commitments… even though you can definitely remember _not_ committing to whoever the fuck Leandro is. “Usual rate, right?”

“Yeah. Shouldn’t be a problem for you.” Nunes leaves without another word, and you quickly pull out your shellphone to find the road that this Leandro fucker should be hiding out on. Fortunately, it’s not a particularly long or winding street, which means you’ll only need a little interrogation to narrow it down.

“Fuck it,” you mutter to yourself. “Should be an easy 2-fiddy.”

**== > Bicuda: Get that easy 2-fiddy.**

* * *

**Secretariat for Public Safety** **  
** **Central Zone** **  
** **11:23 am**

You are now Kaviro Morrah and you earn more than just 250 a day with your new Deputy Secretariat salary. Right now it's another day in the office, with something other than just ordinary office work. Or at least that's what it's supposed to be, as you brief a group of your subordinates in a meeting room at the Secretariat. A map of the area is projected on the pull-down screen in the front of the room.

You tug at your tie just a little bit before you begin.

"As you are all most likely aware, the gang that attacked the VIP function a couple of days ago have been identified as the Brotherhood. They're up-and-comers from just outside the city, trying to fill the void left behind after we cleared out the Amigos dos Amigos and Comando Vermelho over the past few weeks."

You pull out a laser pointer and gesture at the area the gang has seemed to claim and their main bases.

"A pacification operation will be launched against their strongholds in Nova Prospite. This will be a joint effort between our office and the city's law enforcement agencies _._ " You find you have to remind yourself to keep your voice down. You’re in an office now, not briefing battle-hardened veterans in Laranjeiras.

"We have been provided a warrant to wiretap as much of the area as we can. Once the intel has been evaluated, a battle plan will be drawn up."

The final screen shows a rough-ish schedule of how quickly you expect this raid to go down.

"Accomplishing this mission will ensure the establishment of law and order in one of the city’s most long-suffering districts. Dismissed, gentlemen. Your city needs you."

You cringe as they leave, from thinking about who will be evaluating the data. You know the data will be going through Investigator Paredes, even though you already have the warrants, and you _really_ wish you didn’t have to deal with him.

A minute or so later you are back in your main monitoring office where a recorded wiretap of some gangland conversation is already playing from one of the computers, and a couple of your new officemates are mapping their latest positions on a map laid out on a large touchscreen. There’s less natural sunlight coming into this office than even your HQ office, but perhaps that’s the tradeoff to make sure nobody else watches your team watching people.

One of your new position's aides knocks on the glass door of your office, a folder in his hand marked as a dossier with a very official-looking logo.

"Come in, Diego," you reply.

"Here's the file you wanted, boss," he says, holding it out to you.

"Thanks," you nod briefly at him before you take the dossier. Opening it, the first thing that catches your eye is the subject’s profile picture, which is clearly from a police roster database. "I'm surprised you were able to find it that quickly."

"According to what you've asked us to monitor, a lot of orders are sent down through this guy," the aide explains, leaning against one of the tables. "He's pretty high up but he doesn't use an alias like the others."

The 'guy' on the sheet certainly looks like an angry-enough motherfucker to bark orders. Shaved and chiseled head, tribal tattoo along the left side of his face, eyes that seem almost permanently transfixed into a glare.

You can't remember off the tip of your horns if Felipe Preisler was in one of your classes, but you can reasonably guess that he'd be one of the few that would have aced physical training in the jungle and then flunked the psychological evaluation afterward.

Your reasonable guess is mostly confirmed when you look through his record. His most recent experience includes a service record with ROTA - São Paulo's counterpart to your special police forces.

"Oh, so now Sampa's gotten involved in our trouble?" That doesn't keep you from wanting to confirm your suspicions though. "What did he do to end up here?"

Diego gestures for you to flip through the folder. The next few pages are case files, with pictures depicting what should only be described as horrible things happening to people, and not just the ones you can describe as suspects.

"Apparently he didn't believe there was a limit to how much you could interrogate suspects… or their families," he explains as you flip through the pages. "He also did a little "community protection' on the side."

That's not to say you haven’t partaken in or supervised techniques like these. You and the men you trained know that these are the only techniques that hardened gangsters and their clients understand, complaints from NGOs be damned. You don't keep them around to die unless you absolutely have to. Eventually, the gangs start trying to clean their _own_ house out of fear of who's trying to rat on them, making your job a little easier.

But you know that in order to win the hearts and minds of the rest of the public, the best thing to do is not to attack their own hearts and minds. And _especially_ not their (uninvolved) family members.

Even operating with a combat knife requires the precision needed for a scalpel.

"The charges against him and his squad were _rock solid_. All they needed was one witness from a group of 20 to put him away for a long time."

"And all he got was fired," you sigh.

"Hard to get a witness testimony from a group of 20 people when you can't find any of them," Diego sighs, pointing at the pictures and tapping on one that actually made you visibly cringe. You'd seen that one about the wriggler fed to the barkbeasts on the internet a few years ago and it still makes you a little sick inwardly as to what these people would do to those that cross them. "They managed to get his boss on lesser charges before they quietly let Preisler and his boys go to bury the media firestorm."

"Now he's doing the same shit in my city with the Barracuda."

" _Allegedly_ , as I'll add," Diego replies, as if you didn't need a reminder of how powerless your department actually is in the grand scheme of things. "I don't see what this has to do with the upcoming operation though."

"Because once we clear out the Brotherhood, 50 reais says this _filho da puta_ is gonna move right in,” you grumble.

“It’s not like we can do anything about it though, at least not without a warrant,” Diego shrugs. “Or favorable public opinion.”

“Not yet. But it won’t hurt to be ready,” you reply before you shuffle the papers and photos back into their folder and hand them back to Diego for their inevitable re-exile back to the cabinets.

You cross your arms and go back to analyzing the wiretap footage, feeling the first wave of a headache coming on.

Between losing control of your city - if you ever had control in the first place - and losing your best men to the machinations of politicians, the most you can do right now is control what you can. Right now, that amounts to finding whatever gang bosses are left.

**== > Kaviro: Find them, kill them.**

* * *

 

**Niteroi** **  
** **4:55 pm**

You cannot actually find your target because you already have. You are also Nymph, and you and your so-called “target” are long gone from the killzone.

The blue sky is starting to show the first tints of red as the sun makes its way down from its zenith. On the other side of Guanabara Bay, it’s still business as usual for a crowd about to get off work. The sight of a suspiciously-familiar supervillain driving a car doesn't turn that many heads, law enforcement or otherwise.

Which, fortunately, is just how you like it.

You pull over in an alley just off a side street linking to the Avenida Joao Brasil, checking for pedestrians before killing the engine and getting out. The early afternoon heat feels somewhat relieving from the car’s air conditioning.

You pull open the rear door and remove the blanket covering the wife of the man you just saved from the milicia. She takes several deep breaths as she sits up in her seat.

You then go around back and pop the trunk, and her very-alive husband steps out, a crick in his neck from the compact sedan's lack of cargo space.

"Thanks… I didn't think that would work," Leandro says, catching his breath.

"I guess they'll believe I'm the Barracuda as long as I act savage enough." You chuckle, hands on your hips as you retract the 2x3dent and sling it back on your shoulder.

"What'd you tell them, though, that didn't make them shoot up the car?" he asks, rolling his shoulders.

Mr. Tropical Shirt happened to be waiting on the road out. When they saw you in the car, leaning forward a little so your vaguely-disguised horns didn't scrape the ceiling, they asked you to pull over to confirm the kill. They saw the body wrapped in the blanket, and asked if they could make sure he was dead.

"That this is a brand new car and bloodstains and bullet holes affect the resale value," you say, imitating your fishter's accent for the last time. "Bicuda is that obsessed with money…”

"Fucking tell me about it,” he spits. “They sent her to collect _double_ from the guy I bought my mobile from 'cause he was a _day_ late on the payments."

"So where are you guys gonna head now?" you ask, leaning on your 2x3dent.

"Far from here," he replies, as his wife gets in the passenger seat. "I got friends that’ll take me in just up the coast."

"Good luck out there, then!" you reply. “May they never bother you again!”

"Thanks," the man says before climbing into the driver’s seat.

You give him a happy wave and a smile as he backs out of the parking spot and drives off, before realizing that you need to find a way back to Cerebro Fogo before the outreach center closes.

**== > Nymph: Find a way back.**

* * *

 

**Favela Cerebro Fogo  
30 seconds before that**

“...da'fuq is koin' on here?” you mutter to yourself, more bewildered than suspicious.

You cannot find your way back to Cerebro Fogo because you are _already here_. Specifically, you are the real Bicuda and you are currently in Leandro’s place of residence. The door hadn’t even been locked before you forced your way in with your 2x3dent drawn and ready to triple-ventilate a motherglubber.

But whoever was living here must have seen you coming all the way from Belem or something because there are opened shelves and drawers around the rooms like they had hastily packed for a getaway they made almost an hour ago.

If this was supposed to be some kind of ruse, it honestly wasn’t even executed that well. You still check the rooms and corners just in case this Leandro fellow’s friends were setting up an ambush.

Then your shellphone “cha-chings” with an incoming message alert. Specifically, it’s the cha-ching message alert you’ve set up anytime someone drops cash at one of your pre-designated drop points across the city. Fo’reel, you think you’d be stupid enough to have a bank account that can be traced back to your alter ego? Plus, as much as you already have multiple you can draw from as your alter ego, the tactile sensation of cash is better than non-metallic credit cards and bits.

You furrow your brow though as you check the notification. 250 Reais isn’t even that much. Killing squeakbeasts is the lowest-paying item on your menu of destruction, specifically to send a message that ratting someone out means their life isn’t even worth that much. You actually get more for each of the rat’s bodyguards. Unless, of course, they’re informing to _your_ homeboys, in which case those lives only worth something until they decide to squeak to someone else.

In any case, if the money is there then it’s money for nothing. Free cash is free cash, and it’ll be enough for you to get something nice when you go hang out with Feffy after you knock off a couple more _errands_.

It’s not like you’ll be thinking of why they’d send you after someone that was already gone, right?

**== > Bicuda: Be gone.**

* * *

**Torre Tubarao** **  
** **11:22 pm**

You are now “Feffy” and you and Meenah have already gone back to your penthouse where you are now enjoying Netflix and platonic, sororal chill.

Like Meenah's other residences in Brazil and elsewhere in South America, this penthouse comes equipped with an IMAX theater that seats at least 100 and includes a mini concession stand that can be supplied on-demand. And like Meenah's other mini-theaters, it's never actually going to fit anywhere near full capacity unless she's feeling up to holding an actual gala premiere of local cinema before anybody else in the country shows it. And even then, considering the number of people she deems “worthy”...

That said, this private showing of the latest Ancestors Cinematic Universe movie will more than suffice for some sisterly bonding time in matching-themed fish PJs.

She's always excited for the Condesce's first scene in every movie, her eyes lighting up at the sight of the always-regal Empress entering into view as she scoops another fistful of popcorn into her mouth.

"Did you reely pay to have her horns shaped like that?" you ask, before taking a sip from your soda cup.

"Ain't gonna confirm oar deny it, Feffy.” She snickers in a way that leans toward the former. "But I did pay to have someone stand in line for her autograph."

"In pink, glow-in-the-dark glitter pen?" you smirk.

"You know it!" she chuckles, and the two of you fist-bunp.

Starting a comic book franchise based on a spacefaring alternate universe version of a fallen empire was a risky enough move at the start, but nobody but the most devoted aficionados would be able to know almost 70 years and multiple equality movements later.

"I can't wait till I got an empire again...fleet'a starships 'n errthing,” she says dreamily.

“Me too,” you reply, leaning in a little. “It’ll make it easier to find villains.”

The Condesce had always been portrayed as a ruthless expansionist, often skirting the point of outright greed, albeit one that believed that the Empire was a force for stability and peace in a turbulent galaxy. The movies smoothed out the sharper edges of her personality to ensure a wider audience appeal.

“I know, right?” Meenah sighs. “Don’t get me wrong, you can take me on for the Fuschia Throne any day but I’m glad for bein’ able to chill out after today.”

“Hmm?” You shift to look at her, concerned. “What happened?”

“Just someone I was supposed to meet today never showed the fuck up, that’s all.” Rather than be reflexively revulsed, she just shakes it off and continues watching as the Condesce attempts to play auspistice between Redglare and the Grand Highblood.

“Public appearance?” you ask, reclining back in your seat.

“Kinda. Still got paid for it tho’; s’why I paid for that new shirt in cash,” she replies before taking another scoop of popcorn. “Dunno, I just get that sinking eeling that I’m bein’ fucked with.”

“Isn’t that just cray-ly life as a cultural icon?” you ask with a raised eyebrow before taking another sip of your soda.

“Yeah, but it just eels...more personal,” she replies, mouth full. “It's probubbly nothin’.”

“Nothin’ you can’t handle.” You smile at her fondly.

“Speakin’a Empresses, we ‘bouta talk over her whole scene here,” Meenah whispers, her voice trailing off at the end.

At least she’s not griping over the fact that the actress playing Her Imperious Condescension is still the same British violetblood that’s filled her shoes since the ACU’s current incarnation began instead of, perhaps, Meenah herself.

But it does get you thinking what kind of movie-ish magic you might be able to pull off while you’re waiting for her to get back from her “day job” as a socialite. Definitely not involving big explosions that would kill thousands of people that are absolutely not CGI assets. But definitely watching villains writhe and grind their teeth watching their plans fall apart, as the current villain is close to doing in this iteration of the Ancestors Cinematic Universe.

Okay, so it’s more like mini-series magic delivered over multiple episodes. And the closest you’ve gotten to a real whale of a villain in recent memory was the leader of a highly disgruntled NYC Department of Sanitation workers cabal that believed that the best way to clear out the grimdark residue was to torch anyone and anything in its vicinity with flamethrowers and napalm, respectively.

You smile as the movie’s action-packed third act gets going, having mentally resolved to make room for some theatrics in tomorrow’s outing in any case.

You will have to get it right the first time, as there are no rehearsals or second takes when lives are at stake. It shouldn’t be too hard, right?

**== > TO BE CONTINUED**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the things I distinctly remember about 2011-era Homestuck was how the Condesce wasn't portrayed as a grown-up Meenah. Here, the ACU would use 2011-era Ancestor canons before the Dancestors defined them.

**Author's Note:**

> It started as a one-shot, turned into a piece of the Chronicle and now my limited creativity wants to turn it into a full-fledged story. Welp. More coming soon, special thanks and shoutout to the RMWT crew!


End file.
